JUNE, 1909 TEN CENTS
A Story of Child Labor "Tile Apostate" By JACK LONDON
Socialism Becoming Respectable
PROFESSOR CLARKE OF COLUM BIA UNIVERSITY ADVISES RE FORMERS TO JOIN THE PARTY.
Third Volume of Marx's "Capital"
ERNEST UNTERMANN "I ain't never go in' to work again ·• The International Socialist Review
A MO.\'THLY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST THOL'GHT
EDITED BY CHARLES H. ORR ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Ernest Untermann, John Spargo, Robert Rives La Monte, Max S. Hayes, William E. Bohn, Mary E. Marcy.
CONTENTS FOR JUNE, 1909
. \ Stor~· uf Child Labor ('"The .-\pnstatc .. ) - Jack Lulldt•n The Third Volume of J\Iarx's "Capital'' - F.nlt'St l'lltl'riiHll/11 Stories of the Cave People .\lary E . .\!ar<"y Socialism for Students. VIII. Socialist Philosophy 1 osc ph r:. C olwz The .-\merican Inferno Arthur Scales The Xegro Problem from the ~egro's Point of Vie\Y /. J!. Robbi11s DEPARTMENTS Editor's Chair: Socialism Becoming Respectable; The Rights and Pow ers of a Czar; Fred ·warren's Conviction: A Step Back,,·:~nl: Shall We Take It?; The Des ?vloines Referendum International Notes Literature and .\rt The World of Labor News and Yiew,; Publishers' Department
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• 80
Digitized by Coogle THE INTERNATIONAL Socialist Review Vol. IX. JUNE, 1909. , No. 12
A Story of Child Labor "THE APOSTATE)}
BY JAcK LONDON.
F you don't git up, Johnny, I won't give you a bite to eat!" The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbor.nly to sleep, fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy's hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed practiced familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the shoulder. "Lemm·e 'lone !" It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as of a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain. But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She got a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down ; but the boy, ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle at the foot of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the superior weight, and the boy and bedding, the former instinot- 929 930 A STORY OF CHILD LABOR ively following the later in order to shelter agaihst the chill of the room that bit into his body. As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoul ders and shook him. Again his fists s.truck out, this time with more force and directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake. "All right," he mumbled. She caught up the lamp and hurried Clut, leaving him in darkness. "You'll be docked," she warned back to him. He did not mind the darkness. When he had got into his clothes he went out into the kitchen. His tread was very heavy for so. thin and light a boy. His legs dragged with their own weight, which seemed unreasonable because they were such skinny legs. He drew a broken bottomed chair to the table. "Johnny!" his mother called sharply. He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word, went to the sink. It was a greasy, filthy sink. A smell came up from the outlet. He took no notice of it. That a sink should smelt was to him part of the natural order, just as it was a part of the natural order that the soap should be grimy with dish-water and hard to lather. Nor did he try very hard to make it lather. Several splashes of the cold water from the running faucet completed the function. He did not wash his teeth. For that matter he had never seen a tooth-brush, nor ·did he know that there existed beings in the world who were guilty of so great a foolishness as tooth-washing. "You might wash . yourself wunst a day without bein' told," his mother complained. She was holding a, broken lid on the pot as she poured two cups of coffee. He made no remark, for this was a standing quarrel between them, and the one thing upon which his mother was hard as adamant. "\Vunst" a day it was compulsory that he should wash his face. He dried himself on a greasy towel, clamp and dirty and ragged, that left his face covered with shreds of lint. "I wish we didn't live so far away," she said, as he sat down. "I try to do the best .I can. You know that. But a dollar on the rent is such a savin', an' we've more room here. You know that." He scarcely followed her. He had heard it all before, many times. The r.ange of her thought was limited, and she was ev.er harking back to the hardship worked upon them by living so far from the mills.
Digitized by Coogle JACK LONDON 931
"A dollar means more grub,'' he remarked sententiously. "I'd sooner do the walkin' an' git the grub." He ate hurriedly, half-chewing the bread and washing the unmasti cated chunks down with coffee. The hot and muddy liquid went by the name of coffee. Johnny thought it was coffee-and exceUent coffee. That was one of the few of life's illusions that remained to him. He had never drunk real coffee in his life. In addition to the bread there was a small piece of cold pork. His mother refilled his cup with coffee. As he was finishing the bread, he began to watch if more was forthcoming. She intercepted his question ing glance. "Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny," was her comment. "You've had your share: Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you." · He did not answer the rebuke. He was not much of a talker. Also, he ceased his hungry glancing for more. He was uncomplaining, with a patience that was as terrible as the school in which it had been learned. He finished his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and started to arise. "Wait a second," she said hastily. "I guess the loaf kin stand you another slice-a thin un." There was legerdemain in her actions. With all the seeming of cut ting a slice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice back in the bread-box and conveyed to him one of her own two slices. She believed she had deceived him, but he had noted her sleight-of-hand. Neverthe less, he took the bread shamelessly. He had a philosophy that his mother, what of her chronic sickliness, was not much of an eater anyway. She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached over and emptied her coffee cup into his. "Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning," she ex plained. A dis~nt whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of them to their feet. She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf. The hand stood at half-past five. The rest of the factory world was just arousing from sleep. She drew a shawl about her shoulders, and on her head put a dingy hat, shapeless and ancient. "We've got to run," she said, turning the wick of the lamp and blow ing down the chimney. They groped their way out and down the stairs. It was clear and cold, and Johnny shivered at the first contact with the outside air. The stars had not yet begun to pale in the sky, and the city lay in blackness. Both Johnny and his mother shuffled their feet as they walk.ed. There
Digitized by Coogle 932 A STORY OF CHILD LABOR was no ambition in the leg muscles to swing the feet clear of the ground. After fifteen silent minutes, his mother turned off to the right. "Don't be late," was her final warning from out of the dark that was swallowing her up. He made no response, steadily keeping on his way. In the factory quarter, doors were opening everywhere, and he was soon one of a multi tude that pr~ssed onward through the dark. As he entered the factory gate the whistle blew again. He glanced at the east. Across a ragged sky-line of housetops a pale tight was beginning to creep. This much he saw of the day as he turned his back upon ~t and joined his work-gang. ' He took his place in one of many long rows of machines. Before him, above a bin filled with small bobbins, were large bobbins revolving rapidly. Upon these he wound the jute-twine of the small bolj>bins. The work was simple. All that was required was celerity. The small bobbins were emptied so rapidly, and there were so many large bobbins that did the emptying that there were no idle moments. He worked mechanically. When a small bobbin ran out he used his left hand for a brake, stopping the large bobbin and at the same time, with thumb and fore-finger, catching the flying end of twine. Also, at the same time, with his right hand, he caught up the loose twine-end of a small bobbin. These various acts with both hands were performed simultaneously and swiftly. Then there would come a flash of his hands as he looped the weaver's knot and released the bobbin. There was noth ing difficult about weaver's knots. He once boasted he could tie them in his sleep. And for that matter, he sometimes did, toiling centuries long in a single night at tying an endless succession of weaver's knots. Some of the boys shirked, wasting time and machinery by not re placing the small bobbins when they ran out. And there was an overseer to prevent this. He caught Johnny's· neighbor at the trick and boxed his ears. "Look at Johnny there-why ain't you like him?" the overseer wrath fully demanded. Johnny's bobbins were running full blast, but he did not thrill at the indirect praise. There had been a time, . . . but that was long ago, very long ago. • His apathetic face was expressionless as he listened to himself being held up as a shining example. He was the perfect worker. He knew that. He had been told so, often. It was a common place, and besides it didn't seem to mean anything to him any more. From the perfect worker he had evolved into the perfect machine. When his work went wrong it was with him as with the machine, due to faulty material. It would have been as possible for a perfect nail-die to cut imperfect nails as for him to make a mistake.
Digitized by Coogle JACK LO.'\' DON 93:1
And small wonder. There had never been a time when he had not been in intimate relationship with machines. Machinery had almost been bred into him, and at any rate he had been brought up on it. Twelve years before, there had been a small flutter of excitement in the loom room of this very mill. Johnny's mother had fainted. They stretched her out on the floor in the midst of the shrieking machines. A couple of elderly women were called from their looms. The foreman assisted. And in a few minutes there was one more soul in the loom-room than had entered by the doors. It was Johnny, born with the pounding, crashing roar of the looms in his ears, drawing with his first breath the warm, moist air that was thick with flying lint. He had coughed that first day in order to rid his lungs of the lint; and for the same reason he had coughed ever since. The boy alongside of Johnny whimpered and sniffed. The boy's face was convulsed with hatred for the overseer who kept a threatening eye on him from a distance; but every bobbin was running full. The boy yelled terrible oaths into the whirling bobbins before him; but the sound did not carry half a dozen feet, the roaring of the room holding it in and containing it like a wall. Of all this Johnny took no notice. He had a way of accepting things. Besides, things grow monotonous by repetition, and this particular happen ing he had witnessed many times. It seemed to him as useless to oppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine. Machines were made to go in certain ways and to perform certain ta~ks . It was the same with the overseer. But at eleven o'clock there was excitement in the room. In an apparently occult way the excitement instantly penneated everywhere. The one-legged boy who worked on the other side of Johnny bobbed swiftly across the floor to a bin-truck that stood empty. Irto this he dived out of sight, crutch and all. The superintendent of the mill was coming along, accompanied by a young man. He was well-dressed and wore a starched shirt-a gentleman, in Johnny's classification of men. and also, "the Inspector." He looked sharply at the boys as he passed along. Sometimes he stopped and asked questions. When he did so he was compelled to shout at the top of his lungs, at which moments his face was ludicrously con torted with the strain of making himself heard. His quick eye noted the empty machine alongside of Johnny's, but he said nothing. Johnny also caught his eye, and he stopped abruptly. He caught Johnny by the arm to draw him back a step from the machine; but with an exclamation of surprise he released the ann. "Pretty skinny," the superintendent laughed anxiously.
Digitized by Coogle _j .·1 STORY OF CHILD LABOR
"Pipe-stems," was the answer. "Look at those legs. The boy's got the rickets-incipient, but he's got them. If epilepsy doesn't get him in the end, it will be because tuberculosis gets him first." Johnny listened, but did not understand. Furthermore he was not interested in future ills. There was an immediate and more serious ill that threatened him in the form of the inspector. "Now, my boy, I want you to tell me the truth," the inspector said, or shouted, bending close to the boy's ear to make him hear. "How old are you?" "Fourteen," Johnny lied, and he lied with the full force of his lungs. So loudly did he lie that it started him off in a dry, hacking cough that hfted the lint which had been settling in his lungs all morning. "Looks sixteen at least," said the superintendent. "Or sixty," snapped the insptctor. "He's always looked that way." "How long?" asked the inspector quickly. "For years. Never gets a bit older." "Or younger, I daresay. I suppose he's worked here all those years?'' "Off and on-but that was before the new law was passed," the superintendent hastened to add. "Machine idle?" the inspector ·asked, pointing at the unoccupied machine beside Johnny's, in which the part-filled bobbins were flying like mad. "Looks that way." The superintendent motioned the overseer to him and shouted in his ear and pointed at the machine. "Machine's idle," he reported back to the inspector. They passed on, and Johnny returned to his work, relieved in that the in had been averted. But the on~-legged boy was not so for tunate. The sharp-eyed inspector haled him out at arm's length from the tin-truck. His lips were quivering, and his face had all the expression of one upon whom was fallen profound and irremediable disaster. The overs~er looked astounded, as though for the first time he had laid eyes on the boy, while the superintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure. "I know him," the inspector said. ''He's twelve years ol Digitized by Coogle JACK LONDON 935 "What makes you cough that way?" the inspector demanded, as though charging him with crime. And as in denial of guilt, the one-legged boy replied, "It ain't nothin'. I jes' caught a cold last week, Mr. Inspector, that's all.'' In the end the one-legged boy went out of the room with the in spector, the latter accompanied by the anxious and protesting super tendent. After that monotony settled down again. The long morning and the longer afternoon wore away and the whistle blew for quitting time. Darkness had already fallen when Johnny passed out through the factory gate. In the interval the sun had made a golden ladder of the sky, flooded the world with its gracious warmth, and dropped down and disappeared in the west behind a ragged sky-line of house-tops. Supper was the family meal of the day-the one meal ilt which Johnny encountered his younger brothers and sisters. It partook of the nature of an encounter, to him, for he was very old, while they were distressingly young. He had no patience with their excessive and amaz ing juvenility. He did not understand it. His own childhood was too far behind him. He was like an old and irritable man, annoyed by the turbulence of their young spirits that was to him arrant silliness He glowered silently over his food, finding, compensation in th'e thought that they would soon have to go to work. That would take the edge off of them and make them sedate and dignified-like him. Thus it was, after the fashion of the human, that Johnny made of himself a yardstick with which to measure the universe." During the meal, his mother explained in various ways and with infinite repetition that she was trying to do the best she could; so that it was with relief, the scant meal ended, that Johnny shoved back his chair and arose. He debated for a moment between bed and the front door, and finally went out the latter. He did not go far. He sat'down on the stoop, his knees drawn up and his narrow shoulders drooping forward, his elbows on his knees and the palms of his hands supporting his chin. As he sat there he did no thinking. He was just resting. So far as his mind was concerned it was asleep. His brothers and sisters came out, and with other children played noisily about him. An electric globe on the comer lighted their frolics. He was pee,·ish and irritable, that they knew; but the spirit of adventure lured them into teasing him. They joined hands before him, and, keeping time with their bodies, chanted in his face weird and uncomplimentary doggerel. At first he snarled curses at them--curses he had learned from the lips of various foremen. Finding this futile, and remembering his dignity. he relapsed into dogged silence. His brother Will, next to him in age, having just passed his tenth Digitized by Coogle A STORY OF CHILD LABOR birthday, was the ringleader. Johnny did not possess particularly kindly feelings toward him. His life had early been embittered by continual giving over and giving way to Will. He had a definite feeling that Will was greatly in his debt and was ungrateful about it. In his own play time, far back in the dim past, he had been robbed of a large part of that playtime by being compelled to take care of Will. Will was a baby then, and then, as now, their mother had spent her days in the mills. To Johnny had fallen the part of little father and little mother as well. Will seemed to show the benefit of the giving over and the giving way. He was well-built, fairly rugged, as tall as his elder brother and even heavier. It was as though the life-blood of the one had been diverted into the other's veins. And in spirits it was the same. Johnny was jaded, worn out, without resilience, while his younger brother seemed .bursting and spilling over with exuberance. The mocking chant rose louder and louder. Will leaned closer as he danced, thrusing out his tongue. Johnny's left arm shot out and caught the other around the neck. At the same time he rapped his bony first to the pther's nose. It was a pathetically bony fist, but that it was sharp to hurt was evidenced .by the squeal of pain it produced. The other children were uttering frightened cries, while Johnny's sister, Jennie. had dashed into the house. He thrust Will from him, kicked him savagely on the shins, then reached for him and slammed him face downward in the dirt. Nor did he release him till the face had been rubbed into the dirt several times. Then the mother arrived, an anemic whirlwind of solicitude and maternal wrath. "\Vhy can't he leave me alone?" was Johnny's reply to her upbraid ing. "Can't he see I'm tired?" "I'm as big as you," \Viii raged in her arms, his face a mess of tears, dirt and blood. "I'm as big as you now, an' I'm goin' to git bigger. Then I'll lick you-see if I don't." "You ought to be to work, seein' how big you are," Johnny snarled. "That:s what's the matter with you. You ought to be to work. An' it's up to your rna to put you to work." "But he's too young," she protested. "He's only a little boy." "I was younger'n him when I started· to work." Johnny's mouth was open, further to express the sense of unfairness that he felt, but the mouth c:osed with a snap. He turned gloomily on his heel and stalked into the house and to bed. The door of his room was ·open to let in warmth from the kitchen. As he undressed in the semi-darkness he could hear his mother talking with a nei,g-hbor woman Digitized by Coogle JACK LONDON 937 who had dropped in. His mother was crying, and her speech was punc tuated with spiritless sniffles. "I can't make out IVhat's gittin' into Johnny," he could hear her say. "He didn't used to be this way. He was a patient little angel. "An' he is a good boy," she hastened to defend. "He's worked faith ful, an' he did go to work too young. But it wasn't my fault. I do the best I •can, I'm sure." ' Prolonged sniffling from the kitchen, and Johnny murmured to himself as his eyelids closed down, "You betcher life I've worked faithful." The next morning he was torn bodily by his mother from the grip of sleep. Then came the meager breakfast, the tramp through the dark, and the pale glimpse of day across the housetops as he turned his back on it and went in through the factory gate. It was another day, of all the days, and all the days were alilfe. And yet there had been variety in his life-at the times he changed from one job to another, or was taken sick. When he was six he was little mother and father to Will and the other childret\ still younger. At seven he went into the mills-winding bobbins. When he was eight he got work in another mill. His new job was marvelously easy. All he had to do was to sit down with a little stick in his hand and guide a stream' of cloth that flowed past him. This stream of cloth came out of the maw of a machine, passed o\:er a hot roller, and went on its way else where. But he sat always in the one place, beyond the reach of daylight, a gas-jet flaring over him, himself part of the mechanism. He was very happy at that job, in spite of the moist heat, for he was still young and in possession of dreams and illusions. And wonderful dreams he dreamed as he watched the steaming cloth streaming endlessly by. But there was no exercise about the work, no call upon his mind, and he dreamed less and less, while his mind grew torpid and drowsy. Nevertheless, he earned two dollars a week, and two dollars represented the difference between acute starvation and chronic underfeeding. But when he was nine he lost his job. Measles was the cause of it. After he recovered he got work in a glass factory. The pay was better, / and the work demandec! skill. It was piece-work, and the more skillful he was the bigger wages he earned. Here was incentive. And under this incentive he developed into a remarkable worker. It was simple work, the tying of glass stoppers into small bottles. At his waist he carried a bundle of twine. He held the bottles between his knees so that he m!ght work with both hands. Thus, in a sitting position and bending over his own knees, his narrow shoulders grew humped anc! his chest was contracted for ten hours each day. This was not good for the lungs, but he tied three hundred dozen bottles a day. Digitized by Coogle !)38 A STORY OF CHILD LABOR The superintendent was very proud of him, and brought visitors to look at him. In ten hours three hundred dozen bottles passed through his hands. This meant that he had attained machiiJe-like perfection. All waste movements were eliminated. Every motion of his thin arms, every m6vement of a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate. He worked at high tension, and the result was that he grew nervous. At night his muscles twitched, in his sleep, and in the daytime he could not relax and rest. He remained keyed up and his muscles continued to twitch. Also he grew sallow and his lint-cough grew worse. Then pneu monia laid hold of the feeble lungs within the contracted chest, and he lost his job in the glass-works. Now he had returned to the jute-mills where he had first begun with winding bobbins. But promotion was waiting for him. He was a good worker. He would next go on the sfarcher, and later he would go into the loom-room. There was nothing after that except increased efficiency. The machinery ran faster than when he had first gone to work, and his mind ran slower. He no longer dreamed at all, though his earlier years had been full of dreaming. Once he. had been in love. It was when he first began guiding the cloth over the hot roller, and it was with the daughter of the superintendent. She was much older than he, a young woman, and he had seen her at a distance only a paltry half dozen times. But that made no difference. On the surface of the cloth stream ·that poured past· him, he pictured radiant futures wherein he performed prodigies of toil, invented miraculous machines, won to the mastership of the mills. and in the end took her in his arms and kissed her soberly on the brow. But that was all in the long ago, before he had grown too old and tired to love. Also, she had married and gone away, and his mind had gone to sleep. Yet it had been a wonderful experience, and he used often to look back upon it as other men and women look back upon the time they believed in fairies. He had never believed in fairies nor Santa Claus: but he had believed impliCitly in the smiling future his imagina tion had wrought into the steaming cloth stream. He had become a man very early in life. At seven, when he drew his first wages, began his adolescence. A certain feeing of independence crept up in him, and the relationship between him and his mother changed. Somehow, as an earner and bread-winner, doing his own work in the world, he was more like an equal with her. Manhood, full-blown man hood, had come when he was eleven, at which time he had gone to work on the night-shift for six months. No child work~ on the night-shift and remains. a child. There had been several great events in his life. One of these had • Digiti~ ed by Google JACK LONDON 939 been when his mother bought some California prunes. Two others had been the two times when she cooked custard. Those had been events. He remembered them kindly. And at that time his mother had told him of a blissful dish she would sometime make-"floating island," she had called it, "better than custard." For years he had looked forward to the day when he woqld sit down to the table with floating island before him, until at last he had relegated the idea of it to the limbo of unattainable ideals. Once he found a silver quart6r lying on the sidewalk. ·That, also was a great event in his life, withal a tragic one. He knew his duty on the instant the silver flashed on his eyes, before even he had picked it up. At home, as usual, there was not enough to eat, and home he should have taken it as he did his wages every Saturday night. Right conduct in this case was obvious; but he never had any spending of his money, ·and he was suffering from candy-hunger. He was ravenous for the sweets that only on red-letter days he had ever tasted in his life. He did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew it was sin, and deliberately he sinned when he went on a fifteen-cent candy debauch. Ten cents he saved for a future debauch; but not being accustomed to the carrying of money, he lost the ten cents. This occurred at the time when he was suffering all the torments of conscience, and it was to him an act of divine retribution. He had a frightened sense of the closeness of an awful and wrathful God. God had seen, and God had been swift to punish, denying him even the full wages of sin. In memory he always looked ba<;k upon that event as the one great criminal deed of his life, and at the recollection his conscience always awoke and gave him another twinge. It was the one skeleton in his closet. Also, being so made and circumstanced, he looked back upon the deed with regret. He was dissatisfied with the ·manner in which he had spent· the quarter. He could have invested it better, and, out of his later knowledge of the quickness of God, he would have beaten God out by spending the whole quarter at one fell swoop. In retrospect he spent the quarter a thousand times, and each time to better advantage. There was one other memory of the past, dim and faded, but stamped into his soul e-verlasting by the savage feet of his father. It was more like a nightmare than a remembered vision of a concrete thing-more like the race-memory of man that makes him fall in his sleep and that goes back to his arboreal ancestry. This particular memory never came to Johnny in broad daylight when he was wide awake. It came at night, in bed, at the moment that his consciousness was sinking down and losing itself in sleep. It always I aroused him to frightened wakefulness, and for the moment, in the first Digitized by Coogle ~ ~IJO A STORl' OF CHILD LABOR sickening start, it seemed to him that he lay crosswise on the foot of the bed. In the bed were the vague forms of his father and mother. He never saw what his father looked like. He had but one impression of his father, and that was that he had savage and pitiless feet. . His earlier memories lingered with him, but he had no late memories. All days were alike. Yesterday or last year were the sa.me as a thousand years-or a minute. Nothing ever happened. There were no events to mark the march of time. Time did not march. It stood always still. It was only the whirling machines that moved, and they moved nowhere-in spite of the fact that they moved faster. \Vhen he was fourteen he went to work on the starcher. It was a colossal event. Something had at last happened that could be remem bered beyond a night's sleep or a week's pay-day. It ibarked an era. It was a machine Olympiad, a thing to date from. "\Vhen I went to work on the starcher," or, "after," or "before I went to work on the starcher," were sentences often on his lips. He celebrated his sixteenth birthday by going into the loom-room and taking a loom. Here was an incentive again, for it was piece-work. And he excelled, because the day of him had been molded by the mills into the perfect machine. At the end of three months he was running two looms, and, later, three and four. At the end of his second year at the looms he was turning out more yards than any other weaver, and more than twice as much as some of the less skillful ones. And at home things began to prosper as he ap proached the full stature of his earning power. Not, however, that his increased earnings were in excess of need. The children were growing up. They ate more. And they were going to school, and school-books cost money. And somehow, the faster he worked, the faster climbed the prices of things. Even the rent went up, though the house had fallen from bad to worse disrepair. He had grown taller; but with his increased height he seemed leaner than ever. Also, he was more nervous. With the nervousness increased his peevishness and irritability. The children had learned by many bitter , lessons to fight shy of him. His mother respected him for his earning power, but somehow her respect was tinctured with fear. There was no joyousness in life for him . . The procession of the days he never saw. The nights he slept away in twitching unconsciousness. The rest of the time he worked, and his consciousness was machine con sciousness. Outside this his mind was a blank. He had no ideals, and but one illusion. namely, that he drank excellent coffee. He was a work beast. He had no mental life whatever; yet deep down in the crypts of his mind, unknown to him, were being weighed and sifted every hour Digitized by Coogle JACK LONDON 941 of his toil, every movement of his hands, every twitch of his muscles, and preparations were making for a future course of action that would amaze him and all his little world. It was in the late spring that he came home from work one night aware of an usual tiredness. There was a keen expectancy in the air as he sat down to the table, but he did not notice. He went through the meal in moody silence, mechanically eating what was before him. The children um'd and ah'd and made smacking noises with their mouths. But he was deaf to them. "D'ye know what you're eatin' ?" his mother demanded at last, des- perately. He looked vacantly at the dish before him, and vacantly at her. "Floatin' island," she announced triumphantly. "Oh," he said. "Floating island I" the children chorused loudly. "Oh," he said. And after two or three mouthfuls, he added, "I guess I ain't hungry tonight.'' He dropped the spoon, shoved back his chair, and arose wearily from the table. "An' I guess I'll go to bed." His feet dragged more heavily than usual as he crossed the kitchen floor. Undressing was a Titan's task, a monstrous futility, and he wept weakly as he crawled into bed, one shoe still on. He was aware of a rising, swelling something inside his head that made his brain thick and _fuzzy. His lean fingers felt as big as his wrist, while in the ends of them was a remoteness of sensation vague and fuzzy like his brain. The small of his back ached intolerably. All his bones ached. He ached every where. And in his head began the shrieking, pounding, crashing, roaring of a million looms. All space was filled with flying shuttles. They darted in and out, intricately, amongst the stars. He worked a thousand looms himself, and ever they speeded up, faster and faster, and his brain un wound, faster and faster, and became the thread that fed the thousand flying shuttles. He did not go to work next morning. He was too busy weaving colossally on the thousand looms that ran inside his head. His mother went to work, but first she sent for the doctor. It was a severe attack of Ia grippe, he said. Jennie served as nurse and carried out his in structions. It was a very severe attack, and it was a week before Johnny dressed and tottered feebly across the floor. Another week, the doctor said, and he would be fit to return to work. The foreman of the loom-room visited him on Sunday afternoon, the first day of his convalescence. The best Digitized by Coogle 942 A STORY OF CHILD LABOR weaver in the room, the foreman told his mother. His job would be held for him. He could come back to work a week from Monday. "Why don't you thank 'em, Johnny?" his mother asked anxiously. "He's ben that sick he ain't himself yet," she explained apologetically to the visitor. Johnny sat hunched up and gazing steadfastly at the floor. He sat in the same position long after the foreman had gone. It was warm outdoors, ·and he sat on the stoop in the afternoon. Sometimes his tips moved. He seemed lost in endless calculations. Next morning, after the day grew warm, he took his seat on the stoop. He had pencil and paper this time with which to continue his calculations, and he calculated painfully and amazingly. "What comes after millions?" he asked at noon, when Will came home from school. "An' how d'ye work 'em?" That afternoon finished his task. Each day, but without paper and pencil, he returned to the stoop. He was greatly absorbed in the one tree that grew across the street. He studied it for hours at a time, and was unusually interested when the wind swayed its branches and fluttered its leaves. Throughout the week he seemed lost in a great communion with himself. On Sunday, sitting on the stoop, he laughed aloud, several times, to the pt>rturbation of his mother, who had not heard him laugh in years. Next morning, in the early darkness, she came to his bed to rouse him. He had had his fill of sleep all week and awoke easily. He made no struggle, nor did he attemot to hold onto the bedding- when she stripped It from him. He lay quietly, an<( spoke quietly. "It ain't no use, rna." , ''You'll be late," she said, under the impression that he was still stupid with sleep. . "I'm awake, rna. an' I tell you it ain't no use. You might as well temme alone. I ain't goin' to git up." "But you'll lose your job!" she cried. "I ain't goin' to git up," he repeated in a strange, passionless voice. She did not go to work herself that morning. This was sickness be- yond any sickness she had ever known. Fever and delirium she could understand; but this was insanity. She pulled the bedding up over him and sent Jennie for the doctor. When that person arrived Johnny was sleeping gently, and gently he awoke and allowed his pulse to be taken. · · "Nothing the matter with him," the doctor reported. "Badly debili tated, that's all. Not much meat on his bones." "He's -.lways been that way," his mother volunteered. Digitized by Coogle JACK LONDON 943 "Now go 'way, ma, an' let me finish my snooze." Johnny spoke sweetly and placidly, and sweetly and placidly he rolled over on his side and went to sleep. At ten o'clock he awoke and dressed himself. He walked out into the kitchen, where he found his mother with a frightened expression on her face. "I'm goin' away, rna," he announced, "an' I jes' want to say good-by." She threw her apron over he11 head and sat down suddenly and wept. He waited patiently. "I might a-known it," she was sobbing: "Where?" she finally asked, removing the apron from per head and gazing up at him with a stricken face in which there was little curiosity. "I don't know-anywhere." As he spoke the tree across the street appeared with dazzling bright ness on his inner vision. It seemed to lurk just under his eye-lids, and he could see it whenever he wished. "An' your job?" she quavered. "I ain't never goin' to work again." "My God, Johnny!" she wailed, "don't say that!" What he had said ·was blasphemy to her. As a mother who hears her child deny God, was Johnny's mother shocked by his words. "\Vhat's got into you, anyway?" she demanded, with a lame attempt at imperativeness. "Figures," he answered. "Jes' figures. I've ben doin' a lot of fig urin' this week, an' it's most surprisin'." "I don't see what that's got to do with it," s.he sniffled. Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother was aware of a distinct shock at the persistent absence of his peevishness and irritability. "I'll show you," he said. "I'm plum tired out. \Vhat makes me tired? Moves. I've ben movin' ever since I was born. I'm tired of movin', an' I ain't goin' to move any more. Remember when I worked in the glass house? I used to do three hundred dozen a day. Now I reckon I made about ten different moves to each bottle. That's thirty-six thousan' moves a day. Ten days, three hundred an' sixty thousan' moves. a day. One month, one million an' eighty thousan' moves. Chuck out the eighty thousan'-" he spoke with the complacent beneficence of a philan thropist-"chuck out the eighty thousan', that leaves a million moves a month-twelve million moves a year. "At the looms I'm movin' twic'st as much. That makes twenty-five million moves a year, an' it seems to me I've ben a movin' that way' most :t million years." "Now this week I ain't moved at all. I ain't made one move in hours Digitized by Coogle 94.4 A STORY OF CHILD LABOR an' hours. I tell you it was swell, jes' settin' there, hours an' hours, an' doin' nothin'. I ain't never ben happy before. I never had any time. I've hen movin' all the time. That ain't no way to be happy. An' I ain't goin' to do it any more. I'm jes' goin' to set, an' set, an' rest, an• rest, and then rest some more." "But what's goin' to come of Will an' the children?'' she asked de spairingly. "That's it, 'Will an' the children,' ".he repeated. Hut there was no bitterness in his voice. He had long known his mother's ambition for the younger boy, but the thought of it no longer rankled. Nothing mattered any more. Not even that. "I know, rna, what you've ben plannin' for Will-keepin' him in school to make -a bookkeeper out of him. But it ain't no use, I've quiL He's got to go to work." "An' after I have brung you up the way I have," she wept, starting to cover her with the apron and changing her mind. "You never brung me up," he answered with sad kindliness. "I brung myself up, rna, an' I brung up Will. He's bigger'n me, an' heavier, an' taller. When I was a kid I reckon I didn't git en Digitized by Coogle JACK LONDON 945 He passed by a small railroad station and lay down in the grass under a tree. All afternoon he lay there. Sometimes he dozed, with muscles that twitched in his sleep. When awake he lay without movement, watch ing the birds or looking up at the sky through the branches of the tree above him. Once or twice he laughed aloud, but without relevance to any thing he had seen or felt. After twilight had gone, in the first darkness of the night, a freight train rumbled into the station. When the engine was switching cars onto the side-track, Johnny crept along the side of the train. He pulled open the side-door of an empty box-car and awkwardly and laboriously climbed in. He closed the door. The engine whistled. Johnny was lying down, and in the darkness he smiled . ••••••••••••••••••••••••• And the chililren? Twelve hours of work for children! 0, misery. But not all the Jules Simon of the Academy of Moral and Political Science, not all the Germinys of jesuitism, could h:tve invented a vice more degrading to th= intelligence of the children, more corrupt ing of their instincts, more destructive of their organism than work in the vitiated atmosphere of the capitalist factory. Our epoch has been called the century of work. It is in fact the century of pain, misery and corruption.-Lafargue in The Right to be Lazy. ••••••••••••••••••••••••• Digitized by Coogle The Third Volume of Marx's "Capital" BY E RNEST UNTERMANN. H E first generation of proletarian students in Europe recei ved the economic theories of Marx, not as a com plete and connected system, but in instalments, American socialists have b een in the same position until the present t im e. T he result has been the same in Europe and America. W ith a f ew exceptions, the Marx students, who were compell ed t o assimilate his theories in this ERNEST UNTERMANN disconnected manner, mi sunderstood and mi sinterpreted them. Out of this desultory study arose an immense volume of controversies, attack- 946 ERNEST UNTERMANN 947 ing and defending what was supposed to be Marx's position, but what was in fact merely a caricature made of his system by friends and foe. Marx had become clear in his mind about the fundamental out lines of his historical and economic theories by 18-17. Even most of the details of special probl~ms qad been worked out by him in a series of rough ma.nuscripts by 1863. These manuscripts contained the essential portions of all three volumes of "Capital" and of the material now published in Germany under the title of "Theories of Surplus-Value.'' Later manuscripts amplified and perfected the older ones, but added nothing new to the fundamental principles. Under these circumstances, the antagonists of Marx in the bour geois camp, who insinuated that he had "abandoned" in his second and third volumes the principles laid down in the first one, added but another proof of their mental incapacity to all the others which they had given previously. For if Marx had abandoned his economic principles, he would have done so before he wrote volume I of "Capi tal," and this whole work would then be an illustration of his dis loyalty to principles laid down by him in his manuscripts. But as these manuscripts were precisely the material, from which he con structed this great work, it is evident that the professors did not understand enough about political economy to grasp his meaning. True, it was not the professors alone who misunderstood him. Even most of his sympathizers did not get a correct conception of his economic system. And that was a natural resuh of the disconnected way, in which the economic works of Marx appeared, and of the lack of mental training among the working people. But that even so his system could be understood by close study and with sufficient mental preparations, was proved by Josef Dietzgen's review of the first volume of "Capital," in 1868, and by Karl Kautsky's popular volume on "The Economic Teachings of Karl Marx," the first edition of which was published in 1886, eight years before the publication of volume III of "Capital.'' Kautsky could justly write in his preface to the eighth edition of his popularization: "It is a widespread idea, which is shared even by some Marxists, that the interpretation formerly given of the first volume of "Capital" by us Marxians was completely overthrown and made untenable by the third volume. Nothing is more erroneous than that. I have subjected my work to a thorough revision after the publication of the third volume, and have not found the least change necessary in my theoretical position. This was .to he expected from the outset, for Engels had inspected and endorsed my manuscript of the first.edition at a time, when he was already familiar with the contents of volume III. If he had found in my book any Digitized by Coogle 948 THE THIRD VOLUME OF MARX'S "CAPITAL" conceptions, which would have been overthrown by volume III, he certainly would have called by attention to this fact.'' However, what was possible for Dietzgen and Kautsky, was im possible for the vast mass of the rank and file of Marx students. They lacked the exceptional training, w)lich Dietzgen and Kautsky had undergone.· · Marx had the essential parts of his system before him, when he wrote out the individual sections. He knew what relation each part bore to the whole. He knew that there was no contradiction between these individual parts and the whole system. But most of his readers, not accustomed to a systematic scientific study, and generally unfami liar with political economy, received and saw only the individual parts of the Marxian system as they issued from the press. And all who hlfve tried to piece these various parts together into a connected and organic system, will remember, what a difficult task that was, and how often they despaired of accomplishing it. The new generation of American socialists will not have to struggle with this difficulty any more. They will read all three volumes in rapid succession. The logical consistency of these volumes will become clear to them without much difficulty. The light, which this third volume, now published for the first time in English, throws upon the preceding two volumes of "Capi tal," reaches far beyond this work. It clears up many doubts, which must have arisen in the mind of a critical student, who read the other economic writings of Marx, which appeared long before the first volume of "Capital" saw the world. A glance at the entire economic literature of Marx proves, that he worked consistently towards the end reached in volume III long'before he put his hand to the first volume of this work. Already the "Poverty of Philosophy," in 1847, demonstrated the superiority of Marx"s historical method over the metaphysical specu lations of a thinker like Proudhon, who tried to solve economic rid dles, not by going down into the basic depths of the process of pro duction and following up its historical development, but by a philoso phical mimicry of Kant's "antinomies" or Hegel's "negations.'' Even . though Marx still uses the economic terminology of the classic econ omists in tltis controversy with .Proudhon, his historical clearsighted ness enables him to point out the utopian meanderings of the radical bourgeois Proudhon, who, unconscious to himself, vacillates back and forth between the capitalist economist and the communist thinkers, without rising to the level of either. The working class point of view, which sprang forth so strongly soon after the "Poverty of Philosophy" Digitized by Coogle ERNEST UNTERMANN 949 in the "Communist Manifesto," expresses itself uncompromisingly in this controversy with Proudhon and opens up a deep chasm between Marx and his adversary. While the historical point of view of the "Poverty of Philosophy" is already that of "Capital," the details of the economic theories had not yet crystallized into that clear distinction of economic categories, which enabled Marx later on to advance beyond Adam Smith and Ricardo in his analysis of exchange-value. In the "Poverty of Phil osophy" as well as in "Wage-Labor and Capital," a series of lectures delivered to a workingmen's circle in Brussels, in 1847, Marx does not yet distinguish between "labor" as an activity creating exchange values, but having no exchange-value itself, and "labor power" as a commodity, whose exchange-value is determined by the labor time required for its reproduction. He still uses the term "labor" for both things, just as the classic economists do. At that time, Marx had studied political economy only for ;t few years, and knew the English economists only from French transla tions. Besides, the political situation compelled him continually to interrupt his studies and take part in the various revolutionary move ments that sprang up in Germany and France from 1847 to 1849. Later, when he was getting his manuscript of "Capital" ready for the press, the organization of the "International Workingmen's Associa tion," in 1864, interfered with his economic writings. Had it not been for such interruptions, and for various attacks of illness, Marx surely would have completed "Capital" before his death. The next link in the economic theories of Marx, which became public, was his "Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy," in 1859. It contains the essential portions of his analysis of exchangfl'· value and use-value, which were later embodied in the first volume o! "Capital." As Marx himself explains in his preface to the first edition of this volume, "the substance of that earlier work is summarized in the first three chapters of this volume. This is done not merely for the sake of connection and completeness. The presentation of the subject-matter is improved. As far as circumstances in any way permit, many points only hinted at in the earlier book are here worked out more fully, whilst, conversely, points worked out fulty there are only touched upon in this volume. The sections on the history of the theories of value and of money are now, of course, left out altogether. The reader of the earlier work will find, however, in the notes to the first chapter additional sources of reference relative to the history of these theories." While "Capital" thus contains a more improved presentation of the Digitized by Coogle 950 THE THIRD VOLUME OF MARX'S "CAPITAL" fundamentals of Marx's theory of value, as first laid down in the "Critique," this earlier work is famous for the systematic statement ·of the materialist conception of history contained in its introduction. Marx had practically formulated this conception in his mind by 18-1:;. In the "Poverty of Philosophy" and the "Communist Manifesto," this conception first showed its results in a tangible form. In the Critique" it received its most systematic formulation. And in the three volumes of "Capital" as well as in numerous historical writings, ~hrx demonstrated, what this conception can really accomplish for the science of human society. The question of exchange-value and use-value had been clear<'d up by the "Critique," but not that of surplus-value and its relation to profit. "Wage-Labor and Capital" had, indeed, contained the concep tion, that capital was the fruit of surplus-labor. But as "labor" at!ll "labor-power" had not been analyzed in their relation to value, tl:e question of surplus-value, of profit, of the role of prices in the e~ change between labor-power and capital, of the production of surph:~ value and its transformation into profit, had not been clearly statcc-d or solved. The next public step in this direction was made by Marx in Iris lecture on "Value, Price and Profit," delivered before the General Council of the "International" on June 26, 1865. This lecture gives a glimpse of the Marxian system as a whole, and is not only a fine synopsis of the first volume of "Capital," but of all three volumes. And if the hints given by this lecture had been appreciated by the readers of volume I, many of them might have saved themselves a good deal of controversy about the quest~on, whether commoditie,; are always and everywhere sold at their full labor value. For in it Marx refutes Weston's assumption of a fixed' wage fund, shows that the proportions of the various factors in production and distribution are continually changing, that prices do not depend upon the free will of the capitalists, but upon economic laws, and that a general rise in wages, if possible, could lead to a general rise of prices only, because higher wages would increase the demand of the workers for articles of consumption and because their demand might exceed the supply of goods. In this way, a deviation of prices from values would take place temporarily, but the swing of competition would gradually balance prices again. This is a hint, the significance of which is made very clear by the detailed analysis of volume III, of "Capital," and a , careful reader might have found this hint even in volume I of this work. Stilt more signficant is the other hint given by .this lecture in Digitized by Coogle EN.NEST UNTERMANN 951 regard to the transfer of capital from one sphere of production to another in consequence of a rise of the average rate of profit in one syhere and its fall in another. For an average rate of profit for all capitals of a certain sphere necessarily means that the individual capi tals in that sphere do not sell their commodities at their individual values, but at prices varying from these values, so that they reap profits not in proportion to the surplus-value turned out by each individual capital, but in proportion to the percentage, which each individual capital represents in the total capital of that sphere. All this was indictaed by Marx long before he published Volume 1 of "Capital". If these hints had been kept in mind during the study of this volume, all the controversies about· the alleged sale of all com modities at their individual value might have been avoided. This lecture might well have served as a basis for a solution of the conun drum, which Engels propounded to the economists in his preface to Volume II, in 1885, namely: How do you reconcile :Marx's theory of value with the fact that equal capitals, with different proportions 0f constant and variable capital, got the same average profit during the same period? For the answer was already contained in this lecture, when Marx, referring to Adam Smith, said that the "natural price" (average value) was the center, around which the prices of commodities continually fluctuated. This hint coupled with the analyses of the effect of changes in the proportion between constant and variable capital upon the production of surplus-value, sufficed as an indication of the direction, in which the solution of Engels' conundrum could be found. It is true, that Marx, for the sake of simplicity, occasionally calls in this lecture "rate of profit" what he later on calls "rate of surplus values." But in his illustration he assumes that the capital, of which he speaks, is one of average composition, which sells its commodities at its value, so that the profit in this case equals the surplus-value. And if· in this case he calculates the rate of profit on the variable instead of on the total capital, he has corrected this little slip later on in his "Capital," so that there ·could be no misunderstanding of his meaning. In all other respects, the terminology of this lecture is that of "Capital." The only points, then, which Marx does not clearly state in this lecture, are: The effect of changes in the proportion between con stant and variable capital upon the production of absolute and rela tive surplus-value; the distinction between surplus-value and profit; the transformation of surplus-value into profit by means of prices Digitized by Coogle !lf,2 THE THIRD VOLUJI E OF MARX'S "CAPITAL" \vhich may vary from the individual value of commodities; the gen eral laws by which this transformation is regulated. The first point was fu1ly cleared up, when volume I of "Capital" appeared in 1867. But neither this volume nor the second ,-olume· cleared up the question of the relation of surplus-value to profit. The basic assumption of the first two volumes is rather, that all commod ities are sold at their value, and the student who is not famiiiar with the previous economic writings of Marx, or who has forgotten what they contain, is apt to overlook, that Marx makes this assumption merely for the sake of simplifying the problem, but does not wish to be understood that this is abolutely the actual state of affairs in reality. However, for the inquit;ies in volumes I and II, this assumption corresponded closely enough to reality. For these inquiries are deal ing with the' social capital as a whole in the sphere of production or of circulation, and for the total social capital it is true enough, that commodities are sold at their value, always remembering, that here, as in other fields of science, absolute mathematical exactness does not exist. Especially in volume I, which deals more specifically with the historical relations between wage workers and capitalists and does not go into the question of the relations of the various types of capi talists among themselves, there is no need of departing from the standpoint of society and its capital and labor as a whole. Neither volume I nor volume II of "Capital" deals with the di,·i sion of the total social surplus-value among the various kinds of capitalists. The question of the transformation of surplus-value into profit is not touched in these volumes. The first merely deals with the production of commodities, the second with their circulation, and the various functions and disguises of capital are analyzed in their relations to necessary and surplus labor. Nevertheless, a close study of these two volumes and their com parison with volume III shows, that the first two pave the .way for the analyses of the third. While volume I reveals the deep signifi cance of the division of capital into a constant and a variable part for the production of surplus-value, volume II adds another link in the evidence by pointing out the significance of the division of con slant capital into a fixed and a circulating portion for the turn-over of capital, and thus far the circulation of surplus-value. The significance of this distinction becomes clear, when we turn to volume III and study the role of fixed capital in helping to make up the cost-price and the price of production (cost-price plus average profit.) This Digitized by Coogle ERNEST VNTERMANN 9fi3 distinction also enables us to understand how it is that the capital ist, who caloolates his rate of profit on the total capital, whether all the fixed capital has been used up or not, can always .make his returns appear smaller than they really are, when we jnquir'e into the actual value of capital that has been transferred to the commodities. When we look back in this way over the various economic writ ings of Marx and over the first two volumes of "Capital," we can readily understand that volume III does not abandon a single funda mental proposition laid down in those earlier writings or in the first two volumes. All of them are logical steps in the same direction, all of them are based upon the same fundamental material. If the terminology is not uniform throughout, still the meaning of these various terms is always thoroughly explained, and it is uniform at least throughout all three volumes of "Capital." Only a superficial reader, or a superficial thinker, can find any flagrant contradictions between these three volumes, or between them and the earlier writings of Marx. But those, who really have a scientific love for political econ omy, will find a never-ending delight in following up the Marxian analyses and comparing the various parts of his system, and their organic consistency, with the loose and really contradictory frag- ments of his adversaries. · In this light, the Marxian system of economy towers high and strong above all others in the world's history, and explains more nearly and more naturally the actual processes in the historical de velopment of human modes of production, especially of capitalist pro duction, than any other system ever discovered by any human brain. And no critique outside or inside of the ranks of the Socialist Parties has ever touched the solid rock of its foundations. Neither has any critic ever offered to place another and superior system upon its ruins. What has been attempted in this line, has from the outset demon strated the weakness, lack of cohesion and superficiality of the Marx critics. What Marx says in volume I about exchange-value and use-value, constant and variable capital, and what he adds in volume II about the fixed constant and circulating constant capital, offers the· natural material, from which he constructs his conception of the technical and value-composition of capital, which together make out the organic composition of capital. And with this organic composition for a starting point, the transformation of surplus-value into profit, and the equalization of the various rates of profit into an average rate of profit in the various spheres of production, and their equalization into a Digitized by Coogle 954 THE THIRD VOLUME OF MARX'S "CAPITAL" social or general rate of profit, becomes a logical continuation of the fundamental analyses of the first two volumes. It is then seen, that the assumption of volumes I and II, to the effect that commodities are sold at their value, actually holds good in two ways: First, it 'holds good for the total capital of society as a whole; second, it holds good for capitals, which have the same organic composition as the total social capital; those are called capitals of average composition. But not all capitals of a certain society, or of a certain sphere of production, have this average composition. Some are behind in the development of their composition. These employ relatively more variable than constant capital and are called capitals of lower com position. Others are ahead 9f the rest and employ relatively more con stant than variable capital; those are called capitals of higher composition. Now all capitals produce commodities for sale in a competitive market. If the relation between supply and demand is normal. that is, if they are approximately balanced, the capitals of average com position sell their products at their value (constant plus variable capital plus surplus-value) ; all other capitals likewise sell their pro ducts at this average price set by the capitals of average composition. But since capitals Digitized by Coogle ERNEST VNTERMANN 955 demand, crop failures or bumper crops shift the balance, capitals crowd into one sphere of production and leave another, laborers are plentiful in one section of a country and scarce in another, and so the regulating position of the average capitals of one period is taken by capitals of a different organic composition of another period. And since the capitals of higher composition are in the most favorable position, whenever a change in technical methods or in the propor tions between demand and supply intensifies competition, they can undersell the capitals of average and lower composition and still make a profit. Under these circumstances, the average rate of profit is never a tangible or fixed rate, but rather assumes the aspect of a liquid, ever shifting magnitude. And since under the pressure of competition there is a continual tendency to increase the constant capital faster than the variable, the rate of profit has a tendency to fall, so long as competition rules the ma~ket. But the natural outcome of composi tion is monopoly. The so-called "life of trade" dies and a new power steps upon the throne. \Vith the advent of monopoly, the tendency of the constant capital to increase faster than the variable capital con tinues, but the monopoly has no longer any competition to fear, it enables the monopolists to fix prices more in accord with their wishes, even in the world market, and this conscious and arbitrary human control now interferes with the uncontrolled pressure of competition and largely oversteps the limits set under competition by the law of value. This power of monopoly to overcome the law of value shows itself in many ways even while competition still rules the world at large. It shows its first signs in two institutions, which have from the outset carried an element of monopoly in them, namely in interest and ground rent . . Interest and ground rent according to Marx are forms of sur plus-value. Under a capitalist form of production, both intere'st and ground rent are more or less undcP the sway of the industrial profit, and it is controlled by the law of value. So far as the rate of interest and the rate of ground rent depend upon the industrial rate of profit they must have the same tendency to fall as the rate of profit. But ground rent and interest are from the outset the outcome of a com bination of things, which enable their beneficiaries to enjoy the fruits of monopoly. They are, of course, always due to society and to class rule, and to that extent they arc not "natural" monopolies, not the outcome of natural, but of,. social law. But both money-capital and land can b~: ~asily monopolized, and to the extent that they are Digitized by Coogle 95ti THE THIRD VOLUME OF MARX'S "CAPITAL" monopolized, they can escape the workings of the law of value to a , greater or smaller degree. Nevertheless, the law of value controls them more or less, so long as competition rules the industrial world. ·But with the institution of banks, of stock companies, of bills of exchange, of fictitious capital, interest becomes to a large extent exempt from the law of value. There is no actual value back of the greater part of the capitalist "securities," and even the bank deposits represent sums which are backed but by an infinitesimal amount of actual values. Yet interest is charged on all these things, and so far as this sort of interest is concerned, Marx himself says that it does not depend upon the law of value, but upon "accident," and that there is no law, by which its rate is detemined. With the coming of industrial monopoly even the last "necessary" connection between interest and industrial profit is destroyed, and monopolists can sway production and distribution without much regard for social laws. But they cannot escape them in the end. It has often been ppinted out of late that in the United States the rate of interest is now as high as it was before the Civil \Var, or even higher. And it has been said that this contradicts the Marxian theory, and that we should revise our ideas on this point. But this new "revisionism," like the older one, is based upon a misconception of the Marxian analysis of interest. Marx has never claimed that the rate of interest absolutely follows the rate of industrial profit, but has merely pointed out that so long as interest is paid out of industrial profits made under competition, so long interest must depend upon the laws of industrial productivityy. He has, however, never over looked the fact that banks, money lenders, stock speculators, etc .. enjoy a monopoly and work largely with fictitious values, and he has never denied that the rate of interest may largely be determined by market condition, which enable money monopolists to charge usury rates for the use of their "capital." \Ve need not revise his theory . on that score in the least. It suffices fully for the explanation of all phenomena, which the advent of monopoly, even in industry, may place before us for solution. In ground rent, likewise, Marx has from the outset acknowledged that it may be the outcome of monopoly. He distinguishes three historical forms of ground rent: Labor Rent, R"ent in Kind, and Money Rent. He distinguishes two main forms of capitalistic money rent: Differential Rent and Absolute Rent. Differential Rent, according to him, appears in two principal forms: Differential Rent I arises through the investment of equal ~r unequal capitals side by side upon lands of different natural fertility. Differential Rent II arises Digitized by Coogle ERNEST UNTERMANN 957 through the invesbnent of equal or unequal capitals successively upon the same land with different results. Absolute Rent, according to Marx, is due from the outset to con ditions, which enable the landlord to pocket any surplus profits, which may arise from market constellations in which the capitalist may sell his agricultural product at monopoly prices. The two forms of differential rent arise in the last analysis from the increased productivity of labor due to a monopolization of superior soils, oa of natural powers, so that capitals invested upon these better soils are enabled to sell their agricultural products at an average price of production determined by the cost price and profit of the capitals invested in the worst land. The surplus profit, which is thus made by the favored capitals, does not enter into the equalization brought about by the general rate of profit, but is paid to the land lords in the form of rent. All this does not contradict Marx's law of value in the least, but is rather built up upon the law of value as the fundamental premise. So far as interest and ground rent modify this law or escape its rule, it is due to conditions of monopoly, which Marx has not overlooked but emphasized from the very beginning. No revision of his theories is necessary in this respect l>ut only a revision of the misconceptions of the would-be revisionists by themselves. If they were as eager to revise their own muddled concepts as they are to revise Marx's. theories, they would get to work studying Marx more profoundly, and that would be of great benefit to themselves and to the socialist movement. A question which has long bothered our impossibilists who are only revisionists at the radical pole of the socialist movement, is that of secondary exploitation. They have strenuously denied that the proletariat can be exploited in the circulation of commodities as well as in their production. According to them commodities are always and everywhere sold at their value, the whole production and circu lation of society resolves itself into mathematical example, and value, price, profit and surplus-value come out in the end without a fraction. This according to them is Marx's theory of value. I have had to stand a good deal of abuse for about a decade whenever I tried to make my impossibilist friends understand that that was a theory of value of their own making. At last they can read volume III and see for themselves that Marx considered a secondary exploitation of the proletariat as one of the principal means by which the rate of profit is prevented from falling. And it is evident, that this secondary ex ploitation must be far greater in a stage of industrial monopoly like Digitized by Coogle 958 THE THIRD VOLUME OF .MARX'S "CAPITAL" the one in which we are now living, than it was under the stage of competition in which Marx wrote. Here, then, is another oppor tunity for a "revision" not of Marxian theories, but of the muddled con ceptions of the impossibilist revisionists. Or, if they stick to their own theory of value it is up to them to demonstrate that Marx's theory of value is wrong in this respect. I shall await developments with a great deal of interest. Of course Marxian economy is not absolute in the sense that it can not be developed and improved a good deal. It can aad shall and Marx and Engels were the first to desire it. But before we younger socialists can attempt that, it is necessary that we should have understood what Marx and Engels actually taught. Engels has added some contributions to Marx's economy in later articles, which were published soon after Engels died. One of these is an interesting sketch of the role of labor in the humanization of the anthropoid ape, the other a discussion of the relations between the law of value and the average rate of profit which comments on some of the misinterpretations of Marx's analyses by various economists and clears up a good many doubtful points. I hope to publish these two articles in the near future in an English translation. In the meantime I hope that a large body of American prole tarians and their friends will delve into the rich mine, which volume III of "Capital" offers to them. And by the time that they have assimilated its contents I hope that either myself or some other com 4 rade will have translated Kautsky's edition of the "Theories of Sur plus-Value," which gives many interesting glimpses of the historical development of this important theory and adds materially to an understanding of "Capital" itself. Best of all I hope that after this the discussions of the economic theories of Marx will proceed on a higher level. This should be the immediate result of a study of volume III, at least among socialists. From the capitalist professors, I don't expect much, of cour~e. and none of us cares very much, anyway, what they think or say. We can take care of ourselves, thanks to Marx. Digitized by Coogle ~~"'=''HE Cave People were skillful fisher folk. From the bark of the cocoanut palm, which they bound to the forked branches of trees, they made nets and caught the fish. The Cave babies were able to swim almost before they could walk. V.,Then for the first time their fathers and mothers threw them into the edge of the river they would beat the water with their little hands, and, with much splashing, make their way toward the bank again. Boat making, however, came slowly to the Cave People. They knew, of course, how logs, or the trunks of trees float, but tree-felling was beyond their knowledge and their tools. Not until they had learned to fashion cane rafts rudely strung or bound together with strips of bark, were the Cave People able to ride against the current of the river. But these cane rafts were so light that they were able, with little effort, to paddle up stream, if they hugged the banks of the river where the current was weak. When the men of the Hairy Folk, who dwelt far up the river, d~ scended upon the Cave People and sought to take away their women and their daughters, the Cave People gave them blow for blow and, in the end, drove the intruders back into the wood. 959 960 THE CAVE PEOPLE 1 And the secret of the maUer was a strange sickness that had come upon the women of the Hairy Folk, and had stricken them with an un known illness. The women of the Hairy Folk had died in great pain, one by one, till only the old and unattractive ones remained to the tribe. And the young men of the Hairy Folk went forth to seek new wives. Now Run Fast was the greatest coward among the tribe of the Cave People, but after the Hairy Folk were driv·en away, he felt that a great strength had come into his heart. Much hair covered his face, and his limbs were as lithe as the branches of the willow, shining in the sun like bars of burnished copper. But his courage was like the water of cool springs, running from him always. . For this reason he had never been able to win for himself a wife. Stripling lads had routed him and taken the young women he lov,ed, arid so he remained alone in the tribe. Deep in his heart Run Fast knew that it would be by brave deeds alone that he could gain a wife. And it was the laugh of the Cave People It L FISHING NET MADE FROM BARK OF COCOANUT PALM. and the scorn of the young women, as well as the hunger in his heart, that drove Run Fast one day along the river bank. He bore only his bone weapon, split at the end like a strong javelin. At his side, and beyond, down past him, flowed the great river and as he ran, he kept close to the bank for he knew that there only would he be aMe to elude the fierce hyenas and the black bear. It was the first time Run Fast had ever traveled forth from the Cave People alone; there was a trembling in his strong limbs, and upon the breaking of a twig, or the falling of a branch, he started forth closer to the river. And the waters rushed continually past him with a mad roar and he knew that he had only to throw himself into the current to be borne swiftly back in the direction whence he had come. Of this one thing Run Fast had no fear, for he had been accustomed to the water fol\ many seasons. For many hours he traveled, only pausing at the edge of the river and clipping his palms, cup-wise, to drink. And when he grew hungry Run Fast skirted the edge of the forest MARY E. MARCY for nuts. Then he resumed his journey, for he remembered the word of Strong Arm, and his gesture toward the sun, when Strong Arm spoke of the holl)es of the Hairy Folk. This meant that it would take one of the Cave Men a day of hard walking to reach their dwelling places. When the Western sky was covered with the gold of the setting sun Run Fast found a raft tied to a tree with a piece of bark. The raft was rude and very heavy, being merely the trunk of a great tree across which was bound branches and pieces of cane, which served to prevent the Jog from rolling over in the river and dumping the people into the water. . Run Fast knew the raft belonged to the Hairy Folk, for according to the words of Strong Arm, there remained but a little way to travel before he would reach their homes. But he marked the spot where the raft lay well. If the Hairy Folk disoovered his approach, he had only to throw himself upon the raft and be borne toward the Hollow where dwelt the tribe of the Cave People. So eager was Run Fast to reach the enemy that he slipped through the wood, like a shadow. in the evening. The rustle of leaves was not heard as his feet sped over them. And he was in the land of the Hairy Folk before he was aware. When he saw the men walking about or squatting over a piece of bear meat, Run Fast slipped into the brush where, unseen, he could watch the manner of living of these folks. His limbs trembled sorely for the quick beating of his heart refused to subside, so heavy was it with fear. But his heart said over and over again that did he but kill one or the men of the Hairy Folk, or return to his. people with one of their women, all the Cave People would look upon him with wonder and admiration. He knew also that if the men of the Hairy Folk discovered him he would have need to run very swiftly to elude their vengeance. It was this thought that brought the sweat to his brow and cau!'.cd his hair 1o bristle with fear. The loni:'ini:' to feed his anger against the enemy hurnt·d within him, but Fear taught him reason. So he lay long among the bushes. awaiting an opportunity to harm them. Men he saw lying with distended bellies, after a meal of fresh meat. but no women. Darker it grew, as the sun continued to ride low in the West, and he had need of all his new found courage to prevent his limbs from running away. Came a time when he felt he could endure the waiting no longer that a woman walked forth from one of the caves. Tall she was and very thin, and so heavy grew the hait: upon her chin and face that he first Digitized by Coogle 962 THE CAVE PEOPLE mistook her for a man. Heavily she walked, as though she were very old or weary with much pain. And at her heels trotted a small brown boy. Long Run Fast watched her eagerly for his cave was londy for want of a wife. His eyes gleamed and he heard in his mind the yells of the men of the Hairy Folk when he should carry oft one of their women. At length as the woman bent her steps toward the caves Run Fast rushed upon her, like the winds that come when the buds grow large. He made no sound, but the brown boy who first saw him set up a cry of alarm. With a sweep of his arm, Run Fast struck the boy to the earth and seized the woman, whom he bore, clawing and scratchipg, to the bank of the river. The hairy woman showed her great teeth, making hideous sounds of rage. She tore at his hair and dug her teeth into his arms. But nothing stopped Run Fast and on he dashed, dragging, pulling and finally carrying her as he went. Soon they reached the edge of the river where lay the raft. And close upon their heels, mad with rage, came the men of the Hairy Folk. Very quickly Run Fast tore loose the bark that held the raft and drew the woman onto it with him. Then he gave a mighty shove that sent them whirling into the river, where the current caught the raft and bore it swiftly down stream. The men of the Hairy Folk were now on the bank of the river and some of them leaped into the water. Others hurled their bone weapons toward Run Fast. But none of them struck home, and beating down the woman he paddled with his hands, and they were soon beyond pursuit. At this season of the year the current of the river made about five miles an hour, and the distance it had taken Run Fast a hard day's journey to cover, would be made by the raft in a few hours. Continually the old woman struck at Run Fast and he had great dif ficulty in keeping her from throwing herself into the river. But a blow from his fist soon quieted her and she ceased to struggle. By and by the stars came out and the moon showed her face and covered the surface of the river with a ftood of gold. The old woman snarled, but Run Fast held her very tightly in his arms. His heart sung a song of pride and triumph for he knew that he would no longer be the scorn of the Cave People. No more would he be compelled to sit alone in his cave with the howl of the hyena to make him more lonely. The day of his triumph was at hand and with tenderness he drew the old woman close to his breast. And the stars laughed and the moon smiled, while the raft ftoated steadily, noiselessly down the river. But the face of the woman was hard with pain, for she knew that men may come Digitized by Coogle MARY E. MARCY 963 and men may go, but the small brown boy, in the home of the Hairy Folk, . would be her boy forever. Who can know the understanding of the dog, which lost in a strange land, finds his way home again! Or the animals of the forest, how they find the old haunts through the unknown ways ! And who among us can say how Run Fast understood that when the moon rose high in the heavens the raft would be nearing the bend in the river which appeared before the H,ollow, wherein lay the homes of the Cave People! For the Cave People were unable to count. One, they made known by the pointing of a fore-finger upward; and two by pointing two fingers. But beyond this, they had no signs for the numbers but flung out their hands as though to say, "many." But Run Fast knew even as his brothers would have known under similar circumstances. And when the raft curved about the bend, he paddled with his hand to steer the boat close to.the shore. Very cautiously he pushed the woman on to the bank before him, for the beasts came often to the river edge to drink, but he saw no danger. Then, making fast the boat, he bore the woman of the Hairy Folk over the rocks to his cave and roHed a great stone before the entrance. And his heart was glad and his blood was warm, for he knew that no longer would he be an outcast among his own people. * * * * * * Two suns had come and gone again when Run Fast bent his steps toward the forest, and the old woman disappeared. Doubtless she turned 964 THE CAVE PEOPLE her face toward the home of the small brown boy among the Hairy Folk. Run Fast was thus again made lonely, but the voices of his brothers cheered him. Always they said, "man, man," when he. appeared, for he had proven his courage and his bravery among the tribe. The young women looked tenderly at the strength of his limbs and he was become honored among his people. * * * * * * [Charles Darwin says in his Descent of Man: "In utterly barbarous times tbe women have more power in choosing, r<'jecting and tempting their lo\·ers, or of afterwards changing their husbands, thnn might have been expected." He giru seYernl illustrations. Page 620, Crowell edition.] ~··························· Among the original germs of thought, which have exercised the most powerful influence upon the human mind, and upon human des tiny, are these which relate to government, to the family, to language, to religion, and to property. They had a definite beginning far back in savagery, and a logical progress, but can have no final consummation, because they ~ are still progressing, and must ever continue to progress.-Morgan's Ancient Society...... Digitized by Coogle Socialism for Students BY JosEPH E. CoHEN. VIII. SOCIALIST PHILOSOPHY. :az~m=aROM the earliest times what man lacked in knowledge he made up in imagination. And the less he was informed as regards what occurred about him, the more extravagant were the speculations he indulged in. Consequently his intellectual growth cmtc:ists, to some measure at least, in a process of rl!sillusi()nment. Dy degrees man has extended the realm of the known and limited that of the unknown. At first the universe appeared as chaos. Then it was seen that everything exists in motion through time and space. Then the distinction became clear between the animate and the inani mate, between the organic and the inorganic, between the lower animals and man. Then came the classification of phenomena: the study of the heavenly bodies, of the activity of matter, of its compo sition, o£ organic life, of consciousness, and of society. Having classified the data gathered, man formqlates theories, learns the pur pose of everything and offers his explanation of what we are, how we came to be and whither we are going. Philosophizing about things is the highest function of the mind. For in a proper sense philosophy is something more than science; it is like standing upon one's tiptoes above what we know to take , a peep into what is just beyond and what some day v•c may under stand. It should be stated at once, however, that there is more poetry than truth in the verse: "\Ve are such stuff :\S dreams are made of." Sentiments of that kind belong to the earlier ages, when men' were engaged in speculating as to the number of spirits tint can dance on the point of a needle. Philosophy deals with the real ities of life, no less so than does science. We spin our philosophies only as we human beings must, because of what we and the uni verse are. Science commences where metaphysics end3. Science does not lose itself in metaphysics. Metaphysics finds itself in science. Ideas originate in our brains, not outside of us. What we call the mind of man, like everything else, began in simpler forms. Fitch 965 Digitized by Coogle 966 SOCIALISM FOR STUDENTS and Jacques Loeb even trace it back to inanimate nature. The im pulse below intellect is intuition, which is developed further in many animals than in man. Thus animals scent danger more Digitized by Coogle JOSEPH E. COHEN 967 teach a distinct philosophy, but how to philosophize.'' Yet Kant believed there to be in everything "the thing in itself,·• something other than the combination of its qualities. Instead of examining the merits and demerits of men and institutions, this process of reasoning would make us hold to "the divine right of kings," "the sacredness of contract" and the infallibility of courts. The consequence of dualism is, as in Spencer's case, the consid eration of an unknowable, separate and distinct from the knowable, forever closed to the human mind. To which it might well be said: If there is, we do not know of it. Much is indeed unknown. But some of what was formerly unknown is now known. While we do not rush to the other extreme-ultimately everything will be known we can say that considerable of what is today unknown will some day be known. Again, in Hegel's case, there is dualism based upon the idea as the primary. Engels describes the Hegelian philosophy in these words: "In this system-and herein is its great merit-for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i. e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, de velopment, and the attempt is made to trace out the internal con nection that makes a contin'!ous whole of all this movement and development. . . · . From this point of view the history of man kind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence all equally condemnable at the judgment seat of mature philosophic reason, and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible; but as the process of evolution of man himself." Hegel sought in history the evolution of ideas as a philosophy of history, rather than the development of institutions out of and into social orders. As a consequence Hegel lost himself in the pursuit of the absolute. His method is satisfactory; the content of that method, the system is insufficient. It is hardly accidental that Spencer and Hegel are found defend ing the existing order, disciples of so-called "individualism." For a philosophy seeking the absolute is, more or less, a mirage of class dominion. The absolute in philosophy accompanies the absolute in economics, politics and social relations, accompanies the concentra tion·of property, power and position into the hands of the monopolist. Breaking away from the Hegelian school, and marking another step forward stands Feuerbach. Feuerbach declared his position to be: "Backwards I am in accord with the materialists, but not for wards." This attitude, Engels, in his work on "Feuerbach," has very well hit off. "The under half of him was materialist, the upper half Digitized by Coogle 968 SOCIALISM FOR STUDENTS idealist." Feuerbach is intermediary, the connecting link. The next school is that of Marx, the materialistic conception of history. Marx's method differs little from the Hegelian. But in the gathering of data, material conditions . and social relations play a more important part than speculations. The Hegelian system is turned right side up. Caution must be exercised in employing the Marxian method Ideas are not ignored. They are included. They are accepted as part of the historical data. But they do not exist alone. And the actual conditions that brought them into being are generally first considered. Marx emphasizes this point when he says in criticism of Feuerbach, "The materialistic doctrine that men are the products of conditions and education, different men therefore the products of other conditions and changed education, forgets that circumstances may be altered by men and that the educator has himself to be edu cated. It necessarily happens, therefore, that society is divided into two parts, of which one is elevated above society. (Robert Owen, for example)." In Socialist philosophy there i~ no pursuit of the absolute, other than lies in recognizing the .universe as the only absolute. Says Dietzgen, in his "Philosophical Essays" : "The absolute and the relative are not separated transcendentally, they are connected with each other so that the unlimited is made up of an infinite number of finite limitations and each limited phenomenon possesses the nature of the infinite." Entertaining any other absolute is but a way of regarding the capitalist order as absolute and final. The Socialist, for his part, regards the ending of the career of our ruling class as the beginning of the career of the working class, as clearing the road for grander intellectual achievement. With the Socialist, therefore, everything is relative. Everything exists by contrasf. All things considered, what is here is superior to what has l:ieen, but inferior to what will be. In the words of Emerson : "The reputations of the nineteenth century will one day be quoted to prove its barbarism." · Again society is not one general mass of owners and producers, some of whom happen to be more intelligent, industrious and thrifty than others. Society is split up into two distinct classes, those who work most and possess least, and those who work least and possess most. This deep-rooted contradiction is at the bottom of many others. It accounts to a great extent for the double code of ethics, the contrast between precept and practice, between the real and the ideal-a contrast so glaring that Ibsen makes one of his characters Digitized by Coogle JOSEPH E. COHEN 969 say: "Don't use that foreign word: Ideals. We've got the excellent native word: lies." Wages and profits, poverty and plenty, slavery and mastery, go together. Truth is relative, not absolute. There are no absolute standards of right and wrong. Everything is right or wrong only in relation to everything else. Estimates are of importance only as they conform to historical needs. There is no valid comparison, for in stance, betwe~n the condition of the workers today and that of the workers of decades ago. A comparison of moment is that which shows whether they own a larger or smaller share of the national wealth, and whether they are masters of their lives more so than formerly. As between right and wrong, wrong is the outgrown. As between true and false, false is the surpassed. Truth and right are all there is to false and wrong, with something in addition. To do right one must comprehend up to and beyond wrong. Just as the higher animals have grown out of others lower in the scale, and civilization out of barbarism and savagery, so what js morally right has grown out of what has become wrong. Right is superior to wrong-by contrast. Socialism is capitalism, and all that has gone before, with some thing in addition-collectivism in the means of material existence. Socialism has, from being utopian, become scientific, and is developing from theory to practice. Socialist. theories arc-by contrast-more satisfactory than others, but ready to be abandoned should a better explanation of social change be advanced. And they are not suffi cient unto themselves. They are broadening in the light of additional knowledge. "Nor do the Socialists consider Marx infallible," com ments Hillquit in "Mr. Mallock's Ability." "Marxism is a living, progressive theory of a live, growing and concrete social movement, not an ossified dogma nor a final revelation. And the disciples of Karl Marx have always shown a true appreciation of the spirit of their master by developing, extending and, when necessary in the light of newer developments, even modifying his teachings." Furthermore, just as there were other playwrights, precursors and contemporaries of Shakespeare, who helped create the Elizabethan drama, so were there other thinkers, precursors and contemp(>raries of Marx and Engels, who helped describe the scientific foundations of modern Socialism. Historical materialism operates in the domain of sociology. Now, sociologists admit that social conditions are not the result of specific pre-arranged carried-out plans, but exist as the sum total of conflicting currents. What is necessary, therefore, is a clear under- Digitized by Coogle 970 SOCIALISM FOR STUDENTS standing of the operation of the law of cause and effect, so that, for the future, the consequence of every proposal may be anticipated. The analysis of the process of reasoning is the special task of philosophy. Philosophy takes up the thread where historical ma terialism drops it. This is made clear by Dietzgen when he says: "The positive outcome of philosophy concerns itself with specifying the nature of the human mind. It shows that this special nature of mind does not occupy an exceptional position, but belongs with the wh~le of nature in the same organization." Historical materialism is supplemented by materialistic monism. Monism is the Socialist's method of reasoning, his dialectic. "The dialectic is," as Engels says, in "Landmarks of Scientific Socialism," "as a matter of fact, nothing but the science of the tiniversal laws of motion, and evolution in nature, human society and thought." And again, "Nature is the proof of dialectics," just as history is the proof of historical materialism. The dialectic may be resolved into thesis, antithesis and syn thesis. Against the thesis that the idea is foremost comes the anti thesis that the material is foremost, following from which the syn thesis accepts the idea through the thing. Against the thesis of hero worship comes the antithesis of historical conditions, following from which is the synthesis that, to a great extent, the individual is the instrument through which the general impulse finds expression. The Socialist position is neither at one extreme nor the other, neither idealism nor the old m;:tterialism, just as to lead a normal life is to be neither a profligate nor a miser. Let us now consider · the non-Socialist. As likely as not he is given to ancestor worship, holding that the proper course lies in a "return to the faith of our fathers." He fails to see that, to be con sistent in this, civilization would have to he deprived of the institu tions it has acquired since their time. For our forefathers, who were used to the ray of the candle, might be blinded by an arc light. More over, what of value there was in their faith persists in our day. For the good, no less than the evil, liveth after them. Indeed we go so far as to say, in view of our additional wisdom and broader mental horizon, however lofty were the principles and ideals actuating them. the principles and ideals of our generation are loftier and grander. Or, often, the philosophy of the non-Socialist is based upon notions that have been "abstracted" from actual conditions-abstract principles of right, justice, equality and the like. Such is a phil osophy of ideas and dangles in the air. Its meaning is lost, burieol in the grave of antiquities. It boasts of no body, no substance. Such Digitized by Coogle JOSEPH E. COHEN 971 philosophy looks upon society as a conflict, not of men and economic interests, but of ideas of justice. An example of a philosophy of abstract principles is anarchism, in many respects the antithesis of Socialism. Plechanoff, in "Anarch i.;:m and Socialism," calls the anarchist a utopian, defining the utopian as "one who, starting from an abstract principle, seeks for a perfect social organization." The anarchist forgets, it is not principles men profess which we must consider, but what they perform. Not creeds, but deeds. Jefferson, who is often quoted as having uttered tl~c words, "The country that is least governed is best governed," himscli stretched the authority vested , in him as president to acquire the Louisiana territory. A philosophy is known by its fruit. So Plech anoff quotes Proudhon, acclaimed the father of anarchism, offering this moth-worn homily as a solution of the labor question: "Workers, hold out your hands to your employers; and you, employers, do r.ot deliberately repulse the advances of those who were your wage earners." Proudhon proved himself a utopian when he devised a banking system for the exchange of labor products years after Robert Owen's. As in the case of the pursuit of the absolute, the philosophy of abstract principles paints a capitalist utopia. So Kautsky says: "Anarchism arose from the reaction of the petty bourgeoisie against capitalism, which threatens and oppresses it." Anarchists join with votaries of capitalism in decrying the ten dency upon the part of the workers to rely on "paternalism,'' in looking upon Socialist control as a despotic bureaucracy that would stifle "individual incentive" and "personal liberty," and in warning us that Socialism is the "coming slavery." Keeping pace with capi· talistic thought, moreover, anarchists advise the workers to refrain from voting just when the ruling class is exerting itself to dis franchise them. A philosophy laying stress upon the aristocracy of ideas is one way or another a philosophy of the artistocratic class in society. The philosophy of the common people is carried upon the broad, dcm•' · cratic back of the realities of life. It is because "necessity is the motfier of invention"--especialliy material necessity-that there are simultaneous inventions in mechani cal appliances and simultaneous spinning of like philosophies. So it happens that, while every philosopher imagines his system to '•e right, his truths to be "natural" or "eternal,'' and his social S';heme to be perfect, they are, none the less, the outcome of conditions at a certain time and place, and serviceable, if at all, only in their proper Digitiz~d by Coogle !>72 SOCIALISM FOR STUDENTS I relation. What was once the faith of the cottage has often become the creed of the castle. So Nietzsche says, in his "Human, All Too Human," which may be taken as a refutation of the extreme pt•ilos• ophy that goes by his name : "Yet everything uttered by the philosopher on the subject of man is, in the last resort, no~l. ;ing more than a piece of testimony concerning man during a nry limited period of time." In so far as they did not e~ho forme .. philosophers. the "natural rights of man" of the French Revolution anti the "un alienable rights" of the American people are the rights of the rising French and American bourgeoisie, contingent upon the advent of modern industry. It is the important fact of modern industry, too, the operation of enormous productive agencies requiring the co-operative labor of millions of workers, which shows that the problem confronting us is social, not personal. For as one question after another assumes the proportions of a social quantity indicating that a social cause has brought it into being and that it must have a social solution, it goes without saying that the solution does not lie in so-called individual ism, but in growing solidarity; not in the independence of the ego, but in the interdependence of humanity. At the same time the psychological element growing out of the fact of the class struggle, class consciousness, is also of great import ance. It is not enough that economic conditions should be deplorable and that there should be pity for the distress of the poor. The point must be reached when the workers realize that their salvation is to be found only in class action. But even in the field of psychology, materialism has come to be considered of prime importance. "At present psychology is on the materialistic tack," declares Professor James, "and ought in the inter est of ultimate success to be allowed full headway even by those who are certain she will never fetch the port without putting down the helm once more." And then comes Professor Elmer Gates, who, in his work on "The Mind and Brain," declares his experiments show that training the mental faculties increases the number of brain cells of the localities brought into play, that cells are multiplied by agree able sensations and diminished by disagreeable emotions, that mind is a purely physiological function and that mind building is just as reasonable an aim as body building. But, more than that, historical materialism explains why psychology busies itself with the crowd and mass movements, rather than with isolated persons, why it has de veloped from "individualistic" to "social." The Sociali~t philosophy, like all others, is partisan, with this Digitized by Coogle JOSEPH E. COHEN 973 reservation: It is the viewpoint of the most numerous class, the class most necessary to the existence of society, and, as such, it comes nearest to being the viewpoint of society as a whole, out of which must grow the monistic philosophy of the future. At the same time the Socialist subscribes to the sentiment ex pressed by Engels, shortly before his death, to Labriola : "We are as yet at the very beginning of things." For society is not of one piece. It is the sum total of many divergent interests and tendencies, together with numerous relics in institutions and thought of former ages. No philosophy can exhaust society. And for us, just as Marxian economic theories cover only capitalist production, just as the theory of the class struggle does not explain all conflict but only that due to the division of society into classes, just as his torical materialism does not account for all social relations but only offers a method for finding the connection between them, so does the Socialist philosophy as a whole not aim to interpret everything about us but only those more important activities that go far toward ·deter mining the general welfare. The Socialist, to make use of a common expression, "takes things philosophically." He knows that the great "reform" waves that ' sweep over the country, and the confusion of issues in campaign times are not so much so agencies of reaction as they are symptoms of public dissatisfaction. He knows that, beneath the smoke, the fires of social change are blazing ever more brightly. He knows that theories, doctrines, philosophies and movements must pass through the crucible of experience. The Socialist takes things philosophically fqr his cause is reared upon the solid foundation of histori cal conditions. While the Marxian theories are indispensable for a clear under standing of the structure and trend of society, they must be taken only as theories. It is only as they are continually examined in the light of experience that they do not ossify into cold formulre but remain a live philosophy and a philosophy of life. It is because these theories are in harmony with everyday affairs, that Socialism is already the philosophy of tens of millions of people of all countries. The Socialist philosophy is in the safe keep ing of the Socialist movement. It is as broad as the movement itself, as vast and as grand in its aspirations and ideals. That is why it has come to be the most precious stone in the sling of the modern David, Labor, with which to strike down the Goliath of class rule. Philadelphia, Pa. Digitized by Coogle 974 SOCIALISM FOR STUDENTS A COURSE OF READING. The following list of books is recommended to the student. They cover tbe subject touched upon by the above article, and it is suggested they be read ill tile order named: Physical Basis of Mind and Morals. By M. H. Fitch. $1.00. }'euerbach. By F. Engeis. 50 cents. Landmarks of Scientific Socialism. By F. Engels. $1.00. Anarchism and Socialism. By George Plechanoft'.' 50 cents. Mr. Mallock's Ability. By M. Hillquit. Socialist Literature Co., New York. Ten Blind Leaden of the Blind. By Arthur M. Lewis. 50 cents. Human, All Too Human. By F. Nietzsche. 50 cents. Social and Philosophical Studies. By Paul Lafargue. 50 cents. Philosophical Essays. By Joseph Dietzgen. $1.00. l'osith·e Outcome of Philosophy. By Joseph Ditzgen. $1.00. These books, with the exception noted, are published by Charles H. Kerr .t Company, Chicago. While small property in land creates a class of barbarians standing half way outside of so H ciety, a class suffering all the tortures and all miseries of civilized countries in addition to ~ t the crudeness of- primitive forms of society, large property in land undermines labor-power in the last region, in which its primal energy seeks refuge, and in which it stores up its strength as a reserve fund for the regeneration of the vital power of nations, the land itself. Large industry and large agriculture on an industrial scale work together. Originally dis tinguished by the fact, that large industry lays waste and destroys principally the labor-power, the natural power, of human beings, whereas large agriculture industrially managed destroys and wastes mainly the natural powers of the soil, both of them join hands in the further course of development, so that the industrial system weakens also the laborers of the coun- t try districts, and industry and commerce sup ply agriculture with the means by which the soil may be exhausted.-Marx's Capital, Vol ume III. Digitized by Coogle V. POWER OF THE PRESS. CCORDING to government as it exists today, might is right. I am not going to attack that position; it is too strongly entrenched to make any attack on it successful. The press is one of the mightiest fac tors of our civilization. It is supposed to defend every official under the government. And it does. The reporter for your daily paper will take the word of the police when writing up articles about a prisoner. Consequently, police officials acquire a lying tongue when talking to reporters. Police officials disregard the ~ruth more recklessly than any types ·of men I hav:.e ever seen. Even a hardened convict could learn lessons in lying from these gentlemen of the club and pistol. Your street man or agent could not but admire the degree of fluency attained by these blue-coated defenders of the virtues of our civilization. The remarkable skill in prevarication shown by police officials will cause laughter, but the effects of their words are . enough to make the angels shudder with grief. If it please the police officials they tell the reporters that the prisoner just taken in is a "dangerous character," "menace to society," 975 976 THE AMERICAN INFERNO "unfit to be at large" and like capitalistic phrases. And the reporter, faithful to his salary ignores the prisoner every time. Quoting fro:n a pamphlet written by Charles Budlong, a man who served three years in the Rhode Island State Prison: "The press is largely re sponsible for the unjust attitude that the public assumes towards prisoners. Sometimes a poor fellow without a cent in the world will be driven by hunger to steal something. The papers are notified that a bold and daring robbery has been committed and the desperate criminal has been captured by a heroic band of blue-coated and brass buttoned guardians of the public weal. The reporters, eager to secure "copy" for their various publications, hastily assemble at the station house where the prisoner is confined, hear the glowing ac counts of the police in whi<:h said police are represented as being the bravest of the brave, and then with lurid imagination proceed to write up the affair. Ofttimes there is scarcely a word of truth in the entire article." Having been a newspaper reporter myself, I am in a position to know something about it. I can truthfully say that in all my experi ences I never knew a criminal case to be correctly reported. The press is so strong that it forms the minds of the people for them. V cry few people think for themselves, allowing their editor to take this burden from their shoulders. Consequently, the editor will print just anything that suits him. BUT should you reader try to get even a letter that does not jibe in with the editor's opinion into the paper, particularly, if you are a person of "no importance" it will be ignored. Try it and see. The press makes or unmakes statesmen. It elects the officehold ers, it protects the police, it sways the minds of the vast majority of the people just as easily as the policeman swings his club. The son of President Taft, if raised from 'infancy to manhood upon Socialist literature, would be an agitator. It is said that under our present form of capitalistic government it is impossible for people to think for themselves. Perhaps this in most instances is true. The newspapers should treat criminal matters with a deep· pall of silence. As it is today crime is popularized to a high degree. It is popular I And the reader must take what is given him in hi~ newspaper. The capital istic press of today is to a great ex-tent responsible for the constant increase in crime. They aid and abet the officials in "striking terror to the heart," thus encouraging the monstrous brood known as the yeggs and police officers. The newspapers sympathize and support all connected with our vile administration of justice. So "crime waves" and "reigns of ·terror" occur and the people are stampeded and terrorized by the officials, while the press popularizes it with extra Digitized by Coogle ARTHUR SCALES 977 editions and all the people have to do is to foot the bills anu pay their taxes. VI. THE SWEAT BOX. \Vhen a person is "ushered" into the sweat box; he is confronted by the officials at the station house. Detectives and deputy sheriffs are there, and many a time the chief himself taks part in the castiga tion. The prisoner is surrounded upon all sides by a vicious, snarling pack of reckless men who vastly resemble the wildest beasts of a five-continent menagerie. These beasts in the shape of men have made a long, practical study of their system. Barking and growling, they attack the man before them. Their voices punctuate the af frighted air with maddened and inflamed tones. It would be almost impossible to believe, were it not seen that such an institution as the sweat box exists upon the .land hallowed by the heroes of the Revolution. It is a horrifying, revolting exhibition of brutal, domi neering power. Honest judges have from time to time refused to accept testimony coming from a sweat box. But these judges are rarely to be found. The prisoner is accused of every crime that has been committed within the officer's recollection for a lifetime. Fre quently the prisoner, entirely innocent, will plead guilty to escape the constant, bestial jungle-bred snarls of the human bloodhounds that encompass him. Darwin asserts the upward evolution of man; these officials almost disprove it. The chief of police himself, like a savage wolf of the northern wilds, unites with his "men" in procuring a confession. Occa stonally, the victim like Topsy will "'fess" too much. If the prisoner is nervous, in the estimation of the officials, he is guilty of the crime for which be bas been charged; if be is cool, he is a hardened char acter. No matter what he does or how he acts, "guilty" is the verdict and from their decision, in most cases, there is no appeal. The offi cers arrange it, so that in the midst of their vicious and snarling lan guage there will be a lull during which "Hennessey" or some like reptile in the shape of man will say in sweet and gentle tones: "Con fess, my boy, anti we'll be easy on you." And the prisoner urged and egged on by kind sympathetic words will burst into tears. He will confess believing that the officials will deal gently with him and he can afterwards live a better life. Poor devil! He bas yet to learn that an officer's word is not worth the hiss of a rattlesnake. A person knows what to expect from a reptile; the ordinary man does not know what to expect from a police officer. The police know their power I The press is with them I They can snap their fingers in the Digitized by Coogle 978 THE AMERICAN INFERNO face of the people and they continue to do it day on day! The police maintain there is no such thing as innocence or virtue, except it is fortified by plenty of money in the banks. Under the present system, they are pretty near right about it. And as I have outlined before, the police hate an innocent man or woman a thous-and times worse than they hate the most degraded criminal. Should the prisoner not "DOWN AND OUT." confess during the first "seance" he is thrown into the dungeon for weeks or months to be fed on bread and water, the hard cement floor for his bed with a various assortment of huge rodents for company. When he is again "sweated" more talented "men" conduct the perse cution and in nine cases out of ten the prisoner breaks down and admits that M is guilty, even though he is innocent, so that he make ARTHUR SCALES 979 escape with a "light" fine; a promise to such effect being always given by the officials and afterwards, invariably repudiated by them. And when the prisoner has confessed, he sees before him year on year behind prison bars, ;£ heavy sentence given to him, that weighs down his heart and soul and makes him curse the day he was born, makes him hate the officials tbat have placed him where he is. As to the officers themselves, they see another soul trampled under foot, good situations in perspective and they join each other at the close of the confession in a banquet of the choicest foods, best liquors and cigars, during which, some one of them will break forth in the reckless and 'degraded: "Aw, haw, haw, haw." So much for the triumph of law and order. VII. POLICE JUDGES, JAILS, WORKHOUSES, BRIDEWELLS, CHAIN GANGS. The rapidity with which cases are conducted in our police courts of the large cities is simply wonderful. Here is where the "drunks" are arraigned and also those charged with petty thefts and crimes. Preliminary examinations are also held here and the prisoner ninety nine times out of 100 is held over to await the action of a higher court. Prisoners here, generally, throw themselves on the "mercy" of the court. They soon learn what that mercy is. In most cases it means the most extreme sentence that the judge is permitted by law to give. Here is where the policeman appears against his prisoner, saying, just anything that suits him, to send his man to jail. Should the jails be full or overcrowded the prisoner is sometimes discharged even after pleading guilty, as there is scarcely room for him to stand inside the jail. When this occurs our young reporters will have it that the lenient judge "saw fit to temper justice with mercy" or the kindly judge "thought he would give the prisoner another chance to reform so he discharged him with a reprimand." When you give your fate to another's hands the die of your doom is cast. While there is noth ing especially humorous in the police courts, except, perhaps, to those who administer the so-called justice, here is a joke that appeared recently in a comic weekly: Judge Bullpup-To innocent stranger, who has just been "cap tured."-"Have you ever been in jail before?" Innocent Stranger.-"No, sir." . Judge Bullpup (kindly).-"Never mind, you are going to be. Six months!" Digitized by Coogle 980 THE AMERICAN INFERNO The average American will publicly announce or privately ex press his "confidence" in the courts as models of dignity and integrity, but let that same American be arrested and you will find him quite shy of that confidence he once had. Jack London in his story "My Life in the Underworld" tells how he was arrested in Erie, Pa., how he was going to claim all of his con stitutional rights. He found he didn't have any but some minutes later, came to himself in a dazed condition, under sentence of six months. In the police court, the testy, dogmatic judge sits dooming pris oners to various terms. He falls, sometimes into good humor. At times he will crack jokes with the prisoner before him, "What be your name, me man?" "Casey." "That's a good name for a rockpile. Guilty?" "Yes, yer honor." "Six months! Next case." Should the prisoner have the audacity to crack jokes with the judge and the judge should get the worst of it, the prisoner may look for just a little bit more time to be tacked on. to his sentence. The dignity of the court must be upheld. Rapid fire justice is the order of the day. Should every prisoner demand and insist upon his rights-no matter, if in most cases, a fair trial would be refused him, the present degradation of our courts would be improved. It is superfluous to say that these reforms rest upon the people. Nothing favorable to the people. can be looked for from those in author ity. Justice will continue to go from bad to worse as long as it is left in the hands of the capitalistic press, the police and the judges. Only a few months ago a judge in Los Angeles, California, pro claimed what he would do to the unemployed when they appeared · before him. His screed was in every paper of the city and approved by the press. Just think of it! A judge giving out publicly in ad vance of any trial his biased sentence in a land where there is sup posed to be "Equality before the law." It is the unemployed who always have to bear the brunt of the policeman's club, his behest to take a bath in mid-winter, in an icy stream, to bear with fortitude the huge chunks of coal that are thrown at him by the officer to rout him from his sleep in a box car, to avoid the bullets fired by the power crazed official in some freight yard and to finally receive a sentence from a judge that is well known to be prejudiced against him. Those convicted of petty crimes, such as spitting on the sidewalk, sleeping in a box car and similar offenses are sent to the rockpile or Digitized by Coogle ARTHUR SCALES 981 to jails, workhouses or bridewells. There ,are ofttimes uncleanly places where rats vie with vermin for possession of the victim. After fighting with these parasites the live-long night the prisoner is fed on "jail slops." Whatever official purchases this food frequently gets his graft out of it. So it can be readily understood that it pays to feed the prisoQers on the cheapest possible kind of grub and garbage. In most places they are worked to the limit of their endurance. Knock-down arguments are the only ones used in these places. While on this subject gratitude should be extended to certain persons in authority who, moved by feelings of humanity, foresaw that these places would be foul, filthy places of residence under any circum stances, and with feelings that showed their kindly spirit, estab lished chain-gangs in various cities throughout the country. All a prisoner has to do all day is to wear a ball and chain on his legs and to wield a pick-ax and shovel. This enables the prisoner to breathe the fresh air during the day and to make a profit for others while being punished for breaking some law that a few years ago was unheard of. It is argued by some violent constitutional Americans and by certain members of the Socialist Party that these things are a disgrace to any countty and particularly to America, "land of the free and home of the brave." They insist that in Russia conditions are no worse than in the United States. Not long ago the police officials of some city in Oregon related to the press with great gusto that a Russian refugee had called at the station house and through an interpreter expressed his strong desire to return to his prison cell in Siberia. After serving his sentence, the victim of authority is told to "hit the grit,'' and if he succeeds in getting out of town without being captured, an officer gets him in the next town, his description having been wired ahead, as he was too profitable to be allowed to escape so readily. Again after he has served his sentence, the same trick is per formed again and again and the victim finds himself, year in, year out, working like a beaver for society but never getting a cent of profit out of it himself. Moreover, he is compelled to feed hosts of , parasites in the shape of vermin of all kinds and these parasites are not a whit more gentle in taking from him the last drop of blood in his body. Chased from town to town, knocked about from pillar to post, never having a vote, never having the least voice in affairs of the day, the American tramp and hobo is one of the most abject speci mens of humanity to be found inside of the American inferno. Digitized by Coogle 982 THE AMERICAN INFERNO ".AN 0]'FICIDR GIDTS HIM IN THE NEXT TOWN." VIII. SHERIFF AND HIS DEPUTIES-THE SECRET SERVICE -PROSECUTING ATTORNEYS. The sheriff and his ~eputies are not so dangerous an element as the police. And be it said right here that the officers of today are no protection to the common people. _They are, however, under Capitalism, a protection to the moneyed element. The sheriff is gen erally a stout, white-looking personage of hog-like girth. He is a huge hulk of indignation and wrath at all times. Snapping red eyes, violent and brutal in speech he is as much of a tyrant as a Turk in his angry robe of scarlet. His own selection of deputy sheriffs are scattered around the country, plug-ugly looking types of a most felon ious stamp. They stand ready to do his bidding night and day. The sheriff and his deputies wear stars which they conceal under their coats until they are ready to make an arrest. They are in cahoots with the police and all of them are hand in glove with the judges. What ch:tnce does the average individual stand in a crowd like that? None whatever. One of the lowest stages of degradation reached by man is the detective. William D. Haywood in fitting language, in his public speeches pays his respects to these "snakes in the grass." As the ARTHUR SCALES 983 mood strikes him, or for a certain sum, the detective will swear away. the life or liberty of any one. The word of an official of any kind should not be accepted in court unless corroborated by some one in good standing. Yet it is accepted at par in every court in the land. Any method to· win results is the motto of the detectives. Most of them have eyes that resemble those of the most venomous reptiles. The Pinkerton brood was the first to be raised in the United States. They have rendered great service to Capital. They came particularly into notice in the Homestead strike ; they were also used in the Western portion of the United States during the Hay wood-Moyer-Pettibone trial and kid naping. Thousands of them are at work today both inside and outside of labor unions seeking at all times to serve their masters. The detectives work at all times in the dark. It is only during times of high excitement that their deeds are brought to light. Garbed in citizens' clothes, they at tract no attention. It is only when the "trap" is sprung, that the detective looms up, hideous as hell, the "game bagged," a home ruined. Frequently innocent men and women are sen tenced to long terms in the "pen," and all because the detective must get his salary and the wheels of so-called jus tice must be kept well oiled. It is only • THE DETECTIVE." .vhen the capitalists get to fighting amongst themselves, that the detectives are shown up by the capitalist press. Certain United States Senators, while shouting about what they were doing ·for the dear "pee-pul" decided to do some private grafting on their own hook. So many were engaged in differ ent grafts of all kinds that they hired detectives to spy on each other; the result will doubtless be that the spy system will hereafter be used only against the labor organizations. Ev.en Edwin C. Madden, who in his day was indefatigable in trying to suppress Wilshire's and the Appeal to Reason, became disgusted with the way his masters were being treated, and wrote a book exposing the United States Secret Service. In all cities of the country there are city, county and state prose9 THE AJVJERJCAN INFERNO .cuting attorneys. The meanest men that can be found usually fill these offices. The average lawyer is not particularly noted for his high moral character, but probably the deepest degradation to which a lawyer can sink is to be found filling the aforementioned offi~es. The prosecuting attorney is always and at all times a liar. Although he knows personally many a time that the defendant is entirely innocent he will try by every means in his power to convict him. The Economic Aspects of the Negro Problem BY I. M. RoBBINS. VIII. THE NEGRO PROBLEM FROM THE NEGRO'S POINT OF VIEW. ~~~~~NTIL now we have discussed the negro problem from the outside, as it were, that is from the point of view of the white man; whether the prejudiced Soudaerner, or the more liberal minded Northerner, or finally the outside observer, absolutely devoid of any precon ceived opinion in regard to the entire situation. No matter how sympathetic and impartial we may try to be we still remain on the outside. For be it noticed for the benefit of the suspi cious, that the sympathetic attitude of these studies to the colored race may not be explained by any relationship between the author of these lines and the negro race. For a fuller understanding of the complicated situation it is absolutely necessary to obtain a look at it from the inside, from the point of view of the negro himself. For many years, nay centuries, the psychology of the negro has remained a closed book for the white man. In her well known novels Mrs. Harriet Be~cher Stowe has idealized this psychology without much concern for the actual facts. She was writing for a definite moral purpose, and not to further anthropological investigation: and from her point of view was entirely justified. But notwithstanding all the literary value and historical influence of her works, as scientific material these books are not very helpful. Besides, Mrs. Stowe's types are the complex types produced by two hundred years of slavery. It would have been extremely inter esting to enter the inner world of that infuriated negro, whom the negro dealer had caught in the jungle of wildest Africa, and brought him over, chained in the dark and ill-smelling bunker of the ship, to the distant land, where he was sold to work the rest of his life in the marshy rice fields, or the sun-baked cotton plantations. It would 986 Digitized by Coogle 986 THE NEGRO'S POINT OF VIEW have been highly instructive to follow up the evolution of that wild beast into the mellow and faithJul Uncle Tom of a century later. But this psycholo~ic problem never had the good fortune to find its scien tific investigator. In the glorious days of slavery, that is during the first third of the last century, the white south was firmly convinced that it was the destiny of the negro both, according to God's will, and the dictum of science, to be nothing else than a faithful Uncle Tom. That tbe negro was satisfied with his lot was the strongest article of faith of the white man. Such assertions may even be heard to-day, though perhaps not so frequently as forty years ago. The famous South Carolina Senator Tillman, perhaps one of the strongest negro haters in the South, in theory at least, once remarked that the main proof that they deserved the treatment accorded to them was found just in this: that no other race would tolerate such treatment. Is it then true that the negroes have acquiesced in the treatment which the white men accord them? That they are satisfied with their present legal, social, and economic position? And if they have become so used to it, how far may it be explained by their inherently slavish nature, and how much by two hundred and fifty years of slavery enforced upon them? All these are questions which do not seem to trouble the average southerner when he proceeds to solve the negro problem. And yet, it is quite evident that upon the answer to this question must depend our entire view as to the future progress of the negro race and the role which it is to play in the future history of the American nation. For surely in the discussion of the fate of ten million people, their own wishes and feelings must at least be considered and consulted. In other words, it is quite a common-place thought to insist that in the solution of the negro problem the negro himself will not remain a disinterested onlooker. In our effort to penetrate the psychology of the dark man, a brief trip into the past will prove very helpful. It is true that we do not know the psychology of the original African Negro, but it is fair to assume that in a practical way the slave owners and the slave dealers of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century were somewhat familiar with it. And it is quite certain from the evidence available, that the negro, as the white man knew him then, did not at all approve of the system of slavery. For all through the legisla· tion of the colonies and the early history of the republic, one sees the strong tendency to prevent the possibility of a negro rebellion. This Digitized by Coogle I. M. ROBBINS 987 explains the strong prohibition of the most peaceful negro assem blages, the special negro codes, the laws against vagrancy, etc. Not withstanding this special legislation, slave rebellions were frequent, and even the bloodiest retribution that followed in their stead did not succeed in suppressing them altogether. Slavery gradually civilized the negro, that is, got him used to the position of a slave. For even a carnivorous animal is easiest to be trained when born in captivity. But even when these patriarchal relations of master and slave were established, (which, the south would have us believe, were full of deepest affection and attachment on both sides), these ideal and idyllic relations did not keep hundreds and thousands of slaves from fleeing north, or buying their freedom at a very high price. Nor was this longing for freedom in any way exceptional. The better, more educated class of the negroes, south as well as north, considered it their duty to help each and every negro who was trying to gain his freedom by flight. These system atic and frequent escapes became possible only because of that famous organization (the so-called "Underground Railway"), whose ramifica tions were to be found in each and every state of the Union. If all through the period of slavery negroes energetically voiced their protest against slavery not so much by words as by acts, they were no less anxious, immediately after the emancipation, to express their conviction that they were no lower, nor worse, than the white folks. Uncle Tom was not the ideal of those few negroes of that period who had ideals at all. It was rather Toussaint L'Ouverture, that full-blooded negro, who succeeded in creating a negro republic in Haiti. The brilliant mulatto, Frederick Douglass, whose oratorical fervor has earned for him an international reputation, never tired for twenty years repeating his protest against the quasi-scientific conten tion that the negro was a member of a lower race. With less talent, hundreds and thousands of negro senators, representatives, and local elected and appointed officers labored to prove the same theory. It is quite true that the new institution of freedom and all the new polit ical and social relations that went with it were not clear to the majority of the members of the negro race. But on the other hand it is no less certain that during the early seventies all the cultured negroes, few as they were, sincerely hoped that with emancipation all barriers between the races would fall, and that there could be no discussion of the possible inequality in the political and social posi tion of the negro and the white man. I have shown in one of the preceding chapters how short a time the period of negro equaJity had lasted; and now more than thirty Digitized by Coogle 988 THE NEGRO,S POINT OF VIEW years have passed since the white man has regained his power and bas again begun to teach the doctrine of his superiority. The ten million negroes who inhabit the United States at present, were brought up under very different conditions, in very different political atmos pheres, and could not be expected to have one -uniform attitude towards the negro problem. The men and women who have received their first formative ideas in the days of slavery, or in the days of reconstruction, or finally in the days of forcible suppression of negro rights, cannot take the same point of view even if they are on the same level of culture and civilization. Besides this historical difference of generations, the other lines cf cleavage must be taken into consideration, such as between the educated and the illiterate negro; the city and the rural negro; and last but not least, between the rich and the poor negro. Therefore the question: What is the attitude of the negro towards the so-called negro problem? is not so easy to answer as it might look~ Without any difficulties the white man can find among; the negroes some support of his own point of view, no matter what that point of view is. If the white man wants to prove the perfectly satisfactory condition of the status quo, he needs only point at his faithful old colored mammy. And the foreigner may shed bitter tears over the tragic fate of the negro race, as pictured in the pathetic writ- ings of William Du Bois. . Now, some discrimination becomes necessary. The spiritual life of the large initerate negro mass is important enough in itself, and would make a fascinating study, but this mass is often unconscious of the general problem except as it affects the direct personal affairs of each individual, and one cannot look to this mass for any coherent theoretical solution of a social problem. The conscious attitude of the small intelligent and educated class of American negroes is there fore much more important for our purposes. Inevitably the name of Mr. Booker Washington looms heavily into the foreground. Nine out of ten Americans will mention the name of Mr. Washington as that of the greatest living negro. The dst majority of the Americans are convinced that Mr. Washington is the one undisputed leader of his people, the negro Moses destined to lead his race into the holy land. Some years ago a southern white professor actually named Mr. Booker Washington as the greatest man in the South living. Mr. Andrew Carnegie has settled a hand· some competence upon Mr. Washington and called him one of the most useful men in the country. This to indicate the role Mr. Wash· ington plays in the political and social life of America. Digitized by Coogle I. M. ROBBINS 989 To understand the policy and platform of this famous man, we must recall a few facts of his very interesting biography, with which many readers are undoubtedly familiar. A muiatto born of a slave woman, and himself a slave until the age of ten, he succeeded in. obtaining his primary schooling in a small negro school, the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute of Virgiriia. In 1881, when only 22 years old, he was entrusted with the care of a similar but very much smaller school in the village of Tuskegee, Alabama, where he remained permanently. It was altogether due to his efforts that the little Tuskegee became the model and greatest school for the educa tion of the negro race in the world. One is not surprised therefore to find that Mr. Washington be came a great enthusiast over technical and trade education for the negroes, until he began to consider it the only and surest solution for the entire negro problem. On the other hand the management of ~ large and ·insufficiently endowed educational institution developed in \Vashington all those qualities which are essential in America for any success in that trying position-a great deal of tact and diplomacy and ability to secure large contributions which are necessary for the existence and further development of his institution. Like many other private educational institutions, Tuskegee cannot exist without such liberal contributions; and they must come from the white men's pockets, for these are the only ones containing the necessa~y where withal to stimulate the noble cause of negro education. The slaves of yesterday have not yet succeeded in accumulating "swollen for tunes." In the beginning, these contributions came exclusively from the North. Later, charitable people were found in the South who felt . the necessity for doing something to improve the strained race rela tions. But only a very tactful man could succeed in obtaining this southern money, and the price of tact is sometimes one's sincerity and one's human dignity. It is not intended to insinuate that Mr. Booker Washington had this heavy price to pay. llut there can scarcely be any doubt that the conditions of his work were partly responsible for the growth of his theory of the gradual uplift of the negro race. Mr. Booker \Vashington has suffered too much from the white man's contempt and cruelty and injustice to view calmly this aspect of the situation. Being a man of world reputation he can scarcely be expected to admit the truth of the contention that he is a member of a biologically lower race. Nevertheless, you will not find in all his numerous writings one single bold statement : we are as good as you are. On the other hand it is not difficult to find phrases which the southerner, somewhat Digitized by Coogle 990 THE NEGRO'S POINT OF VIEW stretching the point, may interpret as an admission of the inferiority of the negro race. Repeatedly he emphasizes the fact that the negro lives in the midst of another race, which is much superior in educa· tion, in property holdings, in experience and in general development The white southerner is equally pleased by the fact that Mr. Washington does not have any faith in the efficacy of protest and struggle as a way to obtain one's rights. He insists (in· his weD known book on the future of the American negro), that the impatient extremists, not familiar with the southern conditions, can only do great harm to their race. Again, in harmony with the average southerner, he persistently minimizes the existing race conflict in the South. If there are exacer bations of the race feeling in some parts of the South at a time, there is also a great deal of peace, good will and co-operation between the races; but he does not mention the conditions of negro existence, by means of which such peace is bought. Instead of increasing the exist ing antagonism he prefers to point out every little hopeful symptom of adjustment, every kind or just act or word which may accidentally escape the mouth of a southern gentleman or appear on the pages of a southern newspaper. He points out that those expressions of regard and distinction which fell to the lot of a few prominent negroes recently (evidently including himself), would have been unthinkable some fifty years ago. In his famous autobiography, he is careful to point out each and every little fact of that nature, including the honor ary degree of Master of Arts by Harvard University, and the talks he had with President McKinley. In 1895 Mr. Washington was invited to speak at the opening exercises of the Atlanta Industrial Exposition; later he was elected a member of the jury of awards, and even became its secretary. About one-half the jury were white southerners. "Nevertheless,'' proudly says Mr. Washington, "I was treated with full respect." He does not seem to notice that this exceptional t~eatment might have been due to his exceptional standing and reputation, and counts that as a great victory for the entire negro race. "Suppose," he says, "that some months before the opening of the Atlanta exposition there had been a general demand from the press and public platform outside the South that a negro be given a place in the opening programme and that a negro be placed upon the board of jurors of awards. Would any such recognition of the race have taken place? I do not think so. The Atlanta officials went as far as they did because they felt it to be ~ pleasure as well as a duty, to reward what they considered merit in the negro race. Say what we will, there is something in human Digitized by Coogle I. M. ROBBINS _ 991 nature which we cannot blot out, which makes one man in the end, recognize and reward merit in the other, regardless of color and race." This is quite a characteristic point of view. Another incident is no less interesting. Mr. Washington conceived a scheme to gain for Tuskegee the distinction of a visit from the President of the United States, for such a visit was evidently going to increase the reputa tion of the school. The careful and diplomatic McKinley, before giving his consent consulted dozens of southerners as to whether such a step would not injure their feelings, and finally granted the request. Washington well understood the fears of the President, and carefully refrained from sitting down at the table during the luncheon which followed the public reception, and was afterwards thanked by the President for the modesty displayed during the visit. But one must not draw the conclusion from the facts related that Mr. Washington is simply a shrewd politician who makes the best of the opportunity to further personal ends. His sincerity and self sacrificing devotion to his work and the cause of his race are evident to any one who has spoken to him, as the writer of these lines has done. And it is just because we are dealing here with a sincere and honest social policy and not the shrewd schemes of an unscrupulous climber, that Mr. Washington's experiences are so interesting. As the man, thus the platform. "The Negro must not expect to improve his condition by a firework of words only," this is a state ment that runs through all the writings and public speeches of Wash ington. The world, he thinks, will never pay any serious attention to the effort of the negro to conquer the right of participation in the political life of the country, until the negro will show better ability for useful economic work and accumulation of property. "The south," he said as early as 1899, "will come to assert the necessity of an educational and property qualification for the voters of both races. Thus, three things are necessary for the proper solution of the negro problem. A kinder attitude of the two races to each other; education of the negro and accumulation of property by the negro." Washing.:. ton absolutely denies the possibility of expatriating the American negro, and does not even· believe that a very large part of them will ever emigrate to the northern or western states. He is convinced that the negroes will remain in the South, and therefore the solution of the negro problem must come in the South and be effected by the South. To him, furthermore, education and property are not two differ ent factors, but rather different aspects of the same condition. Edu cation must be directed so as to help the negro to work, earn, and DigitizedbyGoogle _j 992 THE NEGRO'S POINT OF VIEW save money. During the times of slavery, he points out, the negro was the main productive power of the South, he was familiar with all the trades, all kinds of productive labor. With the emancipation· of the slaves all this has radically changed. The' next generation knew nothing, could do nothing. This condition of affairs must be remedied. The negro must learn not to talk but to work. Ability to do things (efficiency, Washington wciuld say, if he were trained in the vernacular of modern economics), and accumulation of capital, those are the main aims the negro must strive for. And Washington strongly intimates, though he does not say it in so many words (for the feelings of the radical negro elements must be taken into consider ation, if he is to preserve his undisputed leadership), that the struggle for political rights were better left alone for the present. He has a firm belief in the efficiency of money. While a guest at a banquet of well-to-do negroes in New York some years ago he said something to that effect: "I noticed that most of you had paid for your tickets with bank checks. \Vhat a fine example for the entire negro race to emulate I I hope to see the day when each and every negro will have a bank account." There is an entire social philosophy in these few words, a system of what the r.ermans have so aptly called Weltanschaung. It is cer tainly broader than the negro problem, and were it possible, might solve all the economic and social questions of the age-except the one: how to get the bank account. ·washington answers that question. Skilled labor must be the way to acquire such universal prosperity. To understand this point of view, it is necessary to keep in mind the fact that large concen trated capitalism is still very young in the south, and that there is still room left-for how long, who can tell ?-for the labor of the skilled artisan. The negro must therefore learn to work, and work better, whether in agriculture, the trades, commerce, in the professions or as a domestic servant. And while he makes this problem of work quite , broad, Mr. Washington nevertheless insists mainly upon the lower classes of labor, understanding as. he does _that the professions, etc., are open only to a small minority of the select negroes. Mr. Wash ington's school is therefore to him .not only simply a useful institu tion among many others; it stands as the embodiment of the only true method to solve the entire negro question. For in order to spread among the negroes the knowledge of trades and mechanical pursuits, such trades and mechanical schools are absolutely necessary. But Washington goes even further than that. Not only does he advo- Digitized by Coogle I. M. ROBBINS 993 cate such trade education, but he even attacks the usefulness of a purely intellectual education. After the civil war, northern charity did a great deal to stimulate college education among the negroes. When it became clear that the southern schools of higher learning are closed to the aspirations of the exceptional negro, and are likely to remain so for a long time, the northern friends began to bring young negroes north, and give them an education in northern colleges. Later many special schools were opened for the negro youths of both sexes under the high sound ing name of colleges and universities, but in reality little more than high schools and academies. Most of -these schools do not at all please Mr. Washington, and call forth very severe criticism, of a tone that sounds very strange from a man whose language is so mild and reserved when he discusses the white man and his actions. In his book on "The Future of the American Negro," he very sarcasti cally tells of meeting a young negro who had received his education in one of the best colleges in the country. The young man was familiar with chemistry, botany, zoology and political economy but he could not tell how many acres of cotton his father was planting a year, and how many in corn. He had met another young negro, a school grad uate, who was sitting on the steps of his log cabin with his French grammar in his hands. The poverty, dirt, and disorder· of the cabin were appalling notwithstanding that French grammar. The French grammar made such a deep impression upon \Vashington's mind that he seldom misses the opportunity to mention this particular incident. The utilitarian conception of education which he emphasizes is some times childlishly narrow. He is grieved to meet a girl "who knows how to find every country on the globe, but cannot serve dinner prop erly, or set the table."- He hates to see a colored girl who knows more about theoretical chemistry than how to wash and press a shirt. It is perhaps in such statements, that Washington possibly uncon sciously admits the racial inferiority of the negro race; for surely no modern educator would insist that the art of the laundry woman must occupy a higher position in the educational program of all humanity than chemistry, and that serving a dinner was more educational than elementary geography. In any case, one thing does not wholly exclude the other, and education of the brain need not come in com petition with education of the hands. It is true, that in some speeches, especially when speaking to an intelligent negro audience, he admits that ·contention; it is true that his own son received a thorough education in Harvard; that the majority of the instructors in Tuskegee are college graduates. Never- Digitized by Coogle 994 THE NEGR0 1S POINT OF VIEW theless, the contrasts he draws between the results of the one and the other kind of education show clearly enough that he would be willing to substitute entirely industrial for general and liberal education. For it could scarcely be said that liberal education has been over-done in the case of the negro. The negro is not yet top heavy in his e (To be Continued.) Socialism Becoming Respectable. Comrade Kohler's communica tion in this month's "News and Views" department shows how the signs of this process strike a proletarian. But some of our socialist .readers may think that he is misinformed or has misinterpreted the recent acts of some of our party members. We therefore giv~ a somewhat lengthy quotation from one of the most respectable period icals in the United States, the Congregationalist and Christian World of Boston. In its issue of May 15, Prof. John B. Clark of Columbia University, a man who stands in the very front rank of Capitalist economists, writes : Not at once by a single stroke is it proposed to confiscate private property. The effort will be made to reach the goal by a series of approaches, although the goal is kept constantly in view and the intermediate steps are to be taken in order that they may bring us nearer to it. What should we do about the movement while it is pursuing this conservative line of action! If we could stop it all by a touch of a button, ought we to do It! For one, I think not. On the general ground that it represents the aspirations of a vast number of working men, it has the right to exist; but what is specifically in point is that its immediate purposes are good. It has changed the uncompromising policy of opposing all half-way meas ures; it welcomes reforms and tries to enroll in its membership as many as possible ·of the reformers. It tries to secure a genuine democracy by means of tl!e initiative and the referendum-something that would accomplish very much of that purifi cation of polities of which the Socialist and others as well have so much to say. Factory laws, the abolition of child labor, the protection of working women and the proper inspection of factories are measures that we all have at heart; and most of us desire the gradual shortening of the working day and general lightening of the burden of labor. Wben it comes to a public ownership of mines, forests, oil wells and the like, there are few of us who are not open to conviction and many of us are ready to assent to that policy by which the government holds on very carefully to such properties of this kind as it possesses and en•n acquires others. inheritance taxes and income taxes, which the Socialists desire, have been widely adopted. In short, the Socialist and the reformer may walk side by side for a very consider able distance without troubling themselves about the unlike goals which they hope in the end to reach . • • • • • • • • • • Will it be safe to join the party and work with it, as it \Vere, ad intenmr Tbe 9915 Digitized by Coogle 996 THE EDITOR'S CHAIR platform is always there telling very distinctly whither the movement ia tendiag. and it is no modest platform which even the immediate demands now constitute, if we take account of all of them; for it includes the national ownership of rail· roads and of all consolidated industries which have reached a national scale and have practically killed competition. It demands the public ownership of Jud itself, a measure so sweeping that our kindly farmer would feel restive in the rankt if he really thought there was any probability of its adoption. What the reformer~ will have to do is to take the socialistic name, to walk behind a somewhat red banner and be ready to break ranks and leave the army when it reaches the dividing of the ways. Will it be safe for the capitalistic reformers to join the Socialist Party for the sake of bringing about reforms which tend to delay the collapse of capitalism? Professor Clark thinks it will, and he is a man of no mean ability. But if he is right, will it be safe for the Socialist Party to shape its policy with a view to catching the votes and even the membership applications of these reformers, who will be, in Pro fessor Clark's words, "ready to break ranks and leave the army when it reaches the dividing of the ways"? That is the issue that must be met within the Socialist Party in the near future. There will be no lack of arguments on the reform side. There are hundreds of efficient party workers who have put in many hours of unpaid labor, and who feel that the fat salary of a public official would be a suitable reward. And the salary is a possibility if we 'can only attract enough reformers to come in and help with their votes. There are party editors work ing for uncertain salaries whose pay would no doubt be sure and liberal if the reformers' money could be poured into socialist channels. And behind these few, who perhaps after all are influenced rather unconsciously than consciously by their material interests, there are many thousand converts who have come to us through sentimental sympathy rather than class consciousness, who will accept Professor Clark's overtures with joy, and with not a thought for the collapse of the allied army "when it reaches the dividing of the ways." Op posed to these will be found an increasing number of wage-workers in the great industries, whose personal experiences have taught them the vital reality of the class struggle, and by their side will be those whose study of socialist literature has convinced them ·that their own ultimate interests are bound up with those of the wage-workers. We who take this position hold that it is better to let the reformers do their reforming outside the Socialist Party rather than inside. We hold that the function of our party is to prepare for the revolution, by educating and organizing, and that the quickest way to get reforms, if any one cares for reforms, is to make the revolutionary movement more and more of a menace to capitalism. Two things are certain. Digitized by Coogle THE RIGHTS AND POWERS OF A CZAR 997 One is that the opportunists, so highly commended by Professor Clark, now hold most of the official positions in our party and control most of our periodicals. The other is that the great mass of the city wage workers remain utterly unmoved by the eloquent propaganda of op portunism. The outcome? That will turn on forces stronger than arguments. Captains of industry are making revolutionists faster than professors and editors can make reformers. And when revolution ists shape the policy of the Socialist Party, reformers will find little in it to attract them. The Rights and Powers of a Czar. To our valued exchange, The Exponent, published by the Citizens' Industrial Association of St. Louis, we are indebted for the following news item and clear-headed remarks: When Charles Moyer was president of the Western Federation of Miners he waa arrested by order of the Governor of Colorado, and as a prooautionary measure was held in jail for two months and a half. Afterwards Moyer brought suit against ex-Governor Peabody, the offict'rs of the militia and the state of Colorado asking heavy damages claiming that as no complaint was ever filed against him his im· prisonment was unlawful. The Supreme Court of the United States bas recently decided the ease in favor of ex·Governor Peabody and the state of Colorado. The court holds that when public danger menaces, the executive warrant may be substituted for the judicial process, and that so long as such arrests are made in good faith and in the honest belid that they are necessary to impede insurrection, the governor is the final judge and cannot be subjected to an action on the ground that be had not reasonable ground for his belief. The effect of this is to make the governor supreme whenever rebellion against civil authority is imminent in his state, and to give him the rights and powers of a czar, without being subject to an action in damages by llny man who thinks his rights were trampled upon. At first blush this seems rather queer doctrine for a Republic but a little reftection will convince one how necessary it is to have that power, to quell insur· rection. Like the much objurgated injunction, its usefulness is in the emergency. We like the consistent way in which The Exponent here avoids such irrelevant questions as "justice" and "natural rights." The im portant point is that it is essential to the welfare of the capitalists who own the government that their officers be empowered to take summary measures against any workingman who menaces their in terests. This is self-evident to the average capitalist, and any work ingman who does not yet see it clearly had better use one of his enforced vacations these days to do a little studying and thinking. As long as capitalists control the industries of the country they must control the government. And they are going to use that government in accordance with their own interests. When workingmen come to realize this clearly, they will be ready to act both in the shops and at the polls, as intelligently as the capitalists, and the weight of numbers Digitized by Coogle 9H8 THE EDITOR'S CHAIR' will not leave the issue long in doubt. Meanwhile the one all important task of socialists is to point out to other working people the things that we see, and start them using their brains. Once started, they will keep on. Fred Warren's Conviction. A jury in a United States District Court has convicted Fred D. Warren, editor of the Appeal to Reason, on a charge of misuse of the mails. The penalty under the statute is one to five years in the penitentiary. An appeal will be taken, and Warren will doubtless remain out on bail until the higher courts have passed on the case. When Haywood had been kidnaped and was being held in defiance of law, the Appeal to Reason, as an object lesson, sent out bulletins offering a reward for the kidnaping of Taylor, who was under indictment in Kentucky, and whom the gov ernor of Indiana, for political reasons, refused to deliver to the Ken tucky authorities. The object, of course, was· to discredit the whole practice of official kidnapping, and Warren's arrest and trial on a tech ' nicality is an obvious trick to "get" the Appeal on a technicality. Fortunately J. A. Wayland, the owner of the Appeal, has ample funds with which to fight the case, and ample means for securing the utmost publicity, so that this attempt to crush the Appeal is likely to fail like previous attempts. Fred Warren is one of the most valuable men in the socialist movement today, and he deserves and will receive the united support of the Sod~list Party. A Step Backward: Shall We Take It? The weekly bulletin of May 8, issued by the National Secretary of the. Socialist Party, an nounces that Local Milwaukee has proposed a national referendum, to amend Article VI, Section 1, of the National Constitution by sub stituting the following: The National Executive Committee shall be composed of seven memben from the membership of the party, and they shall bold office for two years. The mem· bers of the Kxecutive Committee shall be elected by referendum vote. The call for nominations shall be issued on the first day of October in years with uneven numbers. Each local shall be entitled to nominate seven candidates. Thirty days shall be allowed for nominations, ten for acceptantes and declinations, and fifty for the referendum. Nominations from five locals shall entitle a candidate to be plaeed oo the ballot. The seven candidates receiving the highest vote shall be elected. Va· cancies shall be filled in a similar manner. Members of the Executive Committee may be recalled by a referendum ,·ote, in the manner provided for referendums in Article XI hereof, except that in such cases the initiative shall not be held open for thirty days but shall be sent out immediately. The present section of the constitution, which this motion would repeal, provides for preferential voting. No election has yet been held under it, since it was adopted too late to be put into operation for Digitize byGoogle A STEP BACKWARD . 999 the last election. It may have its faults, but it has one shining merit, and that is that it makes impossible the election of a candidate who is objectionable to a majority of the party members. The present National Executive Committee was elected under provisions very similar to those which the Milwaukee motion seeks to restore, and each member was elected by a minority of the votes, the majority scattering their votes among a multitude of candidates. Victor L. Berger of Milwaukee received the highest number of votes at the last election, but he fell far short of a majority. At the next election, if the referendum is defeated and the present section of the consti· tution stands, he will, if a candidate, have to choose in which one of seven columns on the ballot his name is to stand. All other candidates who choose can have their names placed in this same column. Each voter will then be required to number the names in each column in the order of his preference, and the candidate opposite whose name the sum-total of figures is lowest will be elected. Now we believe, and we think Comrade Berger is aware, that there are several thousand party members who, if there are thirty candidates in his column, will take pleasure in writing the figures 30 opposite his name. And this is not at all because we attribute improper motives to him or wish him out of the party. On the contrary we have the highest regard for his personal qualities and want to work with him. But we think his views on tactics are inconsistent with the revolutionary aims of the Socialist Party. Of course, the preferential ballot is a two-edged sword that will cut both ways. The Milwaukee comrades, and those who agree with them as to tactics, will doubtless write the largest possible figures opposite the names of those who are known to be uncompro mising revolutionists. Thus such comrades as have not thus far been prominent in the controversies over tactics may head the ballot. Bul even so, this is better than the discarded system which Local Milwau kee would re-enact. For the tendency of the old system was to hap hazard voting, each member marking the names of personal friends, or of traveling speakers whom he may have heard or admired. The system of preferential voting will encourage members to look into the public record of each candidate, and see whether he stands for the tactics which the voter believes to be the best for the party. By all means let us vote down the Milwaukee referendum. The Des Moines Referendum. It may be worth while to add a few words on the referendum of Local Des Moines, which is sent out simultaneously with that of Local Milwaukee, since both may receive the necessary number of seconds and be presented for voting at the same time. The proposition, so far as the Constitution is concerned, Digitized by Coogle 1000 THE EDITOR'S CHAIR is far less objectionable, in fact, it is in many respects an improvement on the section in the present constitution. It preserves the principle of preferential voting, and would prevent our present government by minority as effectually as the constitution which it is proposed to amend. It contains, however, a provision for printing the list of can didates on the ballot over and over, as many times as there are candi dates. This opens the way to endless confusion both in the marking and the counting of the ballots. We believe one election should be held under the constitution as it stands; then there will be time enough to amend. Local Portland's referendum, which the Review was almost alone in publicly comJ1!ending, received nearly 40 per cent of the votes on its main proposition, and some of its provisions will have to be included in the constitution before long. Meanwhile, let us try the tool we have and see how it works. Postoffice Socialism. No reader of the REviEW should overlook the stirring events in France, related in our department of International Notes. It is not many years since most of the people in America who thought they were socialists imagined that the postoffice was a small section of socialism already arrived, and that if postoffice methods could only be extended to take in the whole of industry, "the people" would have gained a final victory, and all would be peace and happiness for ever and ever. Most of these comrades have already learned better. but to the few who cling to those ideals, the news from France must come as a rude awakening. The class struggle between wage-workers and capi talists is a stubborn fact that keeps asserting itself in the most persistent and troublesome ways. The wage-workers are obliged to sell their labor power for a small fraction of what they produce, and they are becoming aware of the fact. Once awakened, they :are wholly indifferent to the question of whether the employer that exploits them is a capitalist cor poration or a capitalist government; in either case they are ready to fight for better pay and better working conditions. Events in France show that a capitalist government is as ready to fight back as a capitalist cor poration. And the moral for socialists is that we may well leave to capi talistic reformers the agitation for extending the functions of government to take in the operation of additional industries. That will come fast enough. Our task, as a party, will be to protect the employes in such industries, as well as ~he employes of privately owned industries, in their right to organize and to strike. The experience of France may soon be duplicated here. I '"""'"'Coogle j INTERNATIONAL NOTES WILLIAM·E •BOHN FRANCE. The Government vs. the men of every class are keenly alive to Wortincclau. During the past month social tendencies. More than this, French the eyes of the civilized world have been capitalists are not as good politicians centered on France. It is significant that as their American prototypes; they ex· what was passing there, the thing that press their views and reveal their pur everyone instincth·ely felt to be of su· poses with a brutal frankness. For both preme moment, was neither a military these reasons the French situation offers campaign nor an election. The capital· a good chance to gauge the temper of the ist world knows where the vital struggle capitalist mind, to discover the direction of modern society is taking place. It of bourgeois industrial and political or· talks a good deal about politics and war, ganization. On the other hand, here we but it is the conflict ·between employers can learn from actual observation and employed that makes the cold shiv· how the proletariat must conduct its era run up and down its spinal cord. The fight, where it must concentrate its en· capitalist may well be proud of his class- ergy. consciousness. He bas few illusions On the capitalist side two things have about the class struggle. Our great been noticeable from the beginning. The American newspapers, for example, have first of these is that the· majority of the openly recognized from the beginning members of the Chamber of Deputies that in the battle now going on in have not even pretended to represent the Paris, the French government represent workingclass. If the 10,000 employes of the. bourgeois power of the world. And the post and telegraph were the only when, on April 25th, a delegation of workers concerned this attitude ori the French postal employes reached Brussels part of the deputies would not be re: with the intention of attending a con· markable. Government employees have vention of their Belgian confreres, they long been regarded as the property of the were met by the police and told to take ministry. They are even forced to vote the next train back to France. More in favor of the government that happens important still is the evidence of an un· to be in power. Their days are long, derstanding between the English and their wages are small, they are denied French governments with regard to the the rights accorded to other workers policy of the French ministry. It is un- and have been from the beginning. So derstood that this matter was made the they have little to expect in the way of subject of discussion on the occasion of attention. If they stood alone it would King Edward's last visit to Paris. It be quite natural for the ministry to say, behooves workingmen to see at least as as it actually did, that it was defending clearly as the capitalists; to understand the nation as a whole against the de that it is their fight that is being waged mands of a small group. But the work· on the other side the water. ing class all over the country made it Recent events in Paris furnish an ex- very clear that it sided with the strikers; cellent opportunity to study the forces that hundreds of thousands of workers of modern society. France is industrially were in favor of granting the demands· less developed than America, but French· of the postal employes. Did tbia have 1001 Digitiz; d by Coogle 1002 INTERNATIONAL NOTES any effect f Not the least-till Paris was 26th the matter waa violently debaiAIII isolated and business had almost come to . in the Chamber. Ja~s waa at hil belt a standstill. Not till business was in· and the ministry was hard put to it terefered with did the majority of the for excuses. Finally a motion was puled deputies take notice. On March 22nd, in favor of giving associations of ~ just before the final agreement was con· ment employes a legal status, but deny· eluded, M. Clemeneeau told a committee ing the right to strike. The next day of the strikers that he could not eon· M. Clemenceau backed down eompletely aider the dismissal of M. Simyan, the 80 far as the aBair of the poster .... offending under-secretary; and as to the concerned. other demands, he could promise no re· But juat a month later hia old poliey form in the trt>atment of employes-in was again put into operation. Sel"ftl faet all he could do was to make a dee· postal employee were summoned by per· laration of personal good will; the gov sonal letter and informed that they ernment would be generous! There was would be . expected to appear before a not even the least pretense to sympathy court to answer to a variety of charge&. or justice. And this attitude of M. Clem· One waa II()CU&ed of having spoken in a enet>au the Chamber of Deputies sup· public meeting in favor of organizjng a ported by a vote of 344 to 138. May.Day celebration in eonjwretion with But another feature of the govern workingmen not governmental employes! mental policy is even more instructive. Another was to answer for the same the terms of the agreement which ended crime and in addition to explain why be the first strike were made as vague as had called MM. Clemeneeau and Briaad possible, and no sooner had the strike renegades. The other crimes recited wen been called off than Ule Prime Minister of like nature. These seven goftl'lllllental recommenced his old taeties. Promises employes had called meetings, advoc:ated counted for nothing; he seemed bent on working elaae solidarity and denouneed nenging himself by humiliating the the ministry. No other miedemeanon workers. He had given his word for were alleged-except that in one eaae a example, not to prosecute anyone for man was charged with having advocated participation in the activities of the antimilitarism and antipatriotiam. strike. On the day that saw the end On April 3oth the ministry formally of the struggle the strikers had had put decided to bring the seven up for trial, up posters proclaiming their victory and and on the following day they were IIUS· saying that the work of M. Simyan was pended. The trial waa set for May 8th. to be undone, that he was no longer On May 3d a number of other employes to be recognized as their superior. At were suspended on similar chargee. that time, of course, M. Simyan had been The latest French paper I have ~e~ea so disgraced that everyone took for bears the date of .May 7th, 80 I do not granted that he was to be dropped. On know the details of the trial. But if •e the 25th M. Clemenceau sent out official may judge from subsequent events it notice to the effect that the authors of seems dear that· the II()CUaed were foUDd this poster were to be discovered and guilty. punished. Fortunately the empiQyes had This recital makes it plain that the anticipated something of this sort; their goYemment did not keep ita pledgee. If committee was still intact and they were it did not promise to dismiss :M. Simyan. ready for action. Immediately a great it certainly did engage itself to reform protest meetiong was called and a delega the administration of the postal depart· tion waited on M. Clemeneeau. On the ment and to refrain from the penecutioa Digitized by Coogle INTERNATIONAL NOTES 1003 of individual employes. And these things· stake. (3) The government has proved it has not done. before the eyes of .all the world the M~ntime the employee have been alive reality of the class-struggle. .After what to every turn in the situation. The at· has happened no one can possibly main· tacks of March 25th and April 27th tain that a republican legislative body were met by the calling of monster pro· represents the interests of the working test meetings. On May 6th a formal clau. .All the deputies except the social· statement of the case against the govern· ists took their stand openly in favor of ment was printed and spread broadcast. breaking pledges made to the workers. The acts of the ministry were recited in (4). Events have shown that the revo· detail and the men were warned to hold lutionary strike is the best immediate themselves ready for another strike. On weapon of the proletariat. .Appeals to the same day a committee of employes' reason, justice, sympathy-all were in· association, having been denied an au· effective. Everything the employes dience by M. Clemenceau, replied by tak· gained was won by the use of industrial ing the 1>teps necessary to organization power. (5) .A number of bye elections as a I)'DQle&t, or regular labor union, which occurred on .April 25th showed that with the rights of other labor org;nlza· the lessons learned in the industrial con tions. This deliberate act meant a new flict are to be applied at the ballot box. struggle. The chamber of deputies took The socialist vote was increased beyond up the whole matter for discussion, but all expectations. One real fight in which without coming to any conclusion. So the polit~cians were fol'Ced to line up and there was nothing left but to declare a show their colors has done more to en· strike; and this was done on May 11th. lighten the French people than years Enthusiastic meetings were held, and the of propaganda work. support of the working class was even ENGLAND. L L. P. Tactics. The an· more nearly unanimous than before. nual conferenee of the Independent La· .At the present writing (May 21st) bor Party met at Edinborough during the the struggle is still on. The government Easter holidays. The debates were heated is better prepared than it was in case of and their outcome spectacular-so spec the former strike. In connection with tacular, in fact, that little else has been chambers of commerce, banks, etc., it talked of recently in English labor and bas arranged a temporary mail service. socialist papers. Nevertheless the sig· The general strike which was called niflcance of the whole atfair is by no ended in apparent failure. Just what the means clear. immediate outcome will be it is impos· The discussion, of course, oentered sible to say. round the relation of the I. L. P. to the In the meantime a number of things Labor Party. .As was expected, the wide seem certain. {1) Whatever the imme· spread dissatisfaction with the Labor diate result the struggle will go on. The members of Parliament came to elfec· government is blindly determined, and tive expression. In the first place, a the working class is thoroughly aroused. motion was introduced to break the al (2) The fight is being prosecuted on a liance with the Labor party and here strictly revolutionary basis. The min· after present I. L. P. candidates as BO· istry maintains that the employes must cialists. This motion was lost b~ a submit to authority; the employes main· rather large majority. The next move of tain that they have right to a voice in the malcontents took the form of a reso· the management of their department. lution in favor of greater independence of That is, it is the fundamental principle action within the alliance. .At present of capitalist organization which is at the I. L. P. is not permitted to run its Digitized by Coogle ___j ioo4 INTb.'RNATiONAL NOTES own candidates on a separate ticket even them back." This action seems quite if it is willing to bear the expenses. The simple and intelligible. The eonfenmee resolution proposed that in general the showed all through that it had & good party co-operate with the other members deal of sympathy with Grayson and biJ of the alliance to elect common candi supporters, and it was not interested dates, but in case it feels itself strong in personal quarrels. But, taking this enough in any constituency it take the action as a pretext, four members of the liberty to put up independent candidates. Administrative Committee handed in The Administrative Committee fought their resignations. Theee were: Keir this resolution, and the vote in favor of Hardie, Ramsay Macdonald, Philip Snow· it may be taken as a measure of the op den and Bruce Glazier. position to the party policy; the vote This dramatic coup seems to have been stood 244 to 123. But t·his did not end an absolute failure. New members were the struggle. Unfortunately personal elected to the committee and the wort elements entered in and beclouded the of the party goes on quietly along the whole discussion. Victor Grayson and old lines. But in the papers there hu Keir Hardie, representing the opposing been a. tremendous outcry, and the issue factions, seemed bent on having a fight has ~en so buried in words that nobody to the finish. The next motion intro eeems to know exactly what h&s hap duced was of a nature calculated to bring pened. My impreSBion is that all the them to close quarters; it proposed to excited talk has little significance, that cut off the salary of members of parlia the rank and file of the I. L. P. is little ment unless they signed the constitution aft'ected. It is dissatisfied, it is more of the Labor Party. This was plainly revolutionary than its leaders, but it hu directed at Grayson, who has insisted on oot lost faith in its old tactics. The acting independently. After a debate progress of revolutiouism is steady but bristling with bitter personalities the slow-and especially slow to break with motion was carried by a large majority. accepted forms of organization. This was a decisive victory for the Ad Position of the S. D.P. Another con· ministration Committee. And when the ferenre occurred at Easter time, that of old members of this committee were re the Social Democratic Party. I have read elected their trimph seemed complete. the reports of this conference with a good At this point, however, affairs took a deal of care, trying to find something turn which upset all calculations. In the to show that the B. D. P. leaders are ri•· report of the committee appeared two ing to the present situation. But I must paragraphs having reference to Grayson. confess to being disappointed. Engels It was told how he recently refused to would seem to have been right when be speak from the same platform with Keir referred to one of these leaders as a mere Hardie, and bow consequently the com sectarian; were he here now he would mittee bad canrelled Grayson's dates un probably include certain of the others. der its auspices. "After lengthy discus It is not so much any particular thing that was done as the general tone of the sion," In the words of F. W. Jowett, "the proceedings. One feels that for theBe conference, more with a desire to heal men there are no problems, everything the breach between the two sections has oeen settled. For example, when a than for any other reason-and feeling motion was introduced looking toward the affiliation of the S. D. P. with the that In the essentia.l matter concerning Labor Party it was merely laughed at. the I. L. P. policy the conference had No one would expect it to he aooepted, overwhelmingly decided on the side of but such a motion opened up the whole the leaders--conceded to the malcon problem of the socialist-labor situation in England, and one might have expected tents the two paragraphs and referred a serious diseUBBion. Digitized by Coogle a Y• MAX s. HAYES Amusing things are happening these such, for instance, u demanding higher days. It appears as though leopard& wages and shorter hours, which would are changing their spots. Tbe Hons. J. mean "confiscation" of the wealth pro W. Van Cleave, C. W. Post and David duced by Van Cleave, Parry, Post & Co., M. Parry, leaders in the union-smash- and which demands are entirely Euro ing brigade, are proclaiming themselves pean and consequently un-American. the "best friends" that organized labor In taking the tactical position that has, or perhaps ever will have. Mr. they do, the Hone. Van Cleave, Parry Van Cleave so stated at New Orleans in and Post are logical. It is the old, shelf- · an interview, and Mr. Post has repeat- worn scheme of "divide and conquer.'' ed the sentiment quite frequently, so They have observed the tendency of the much so that he has apparently ceased workers toward accepting the philosophy to run paid "ads" in the daily news- of socialism, which means their downfall, pape.rs denouncing unions and is taming and, in order to more easily conquer down in a most wonderful manner. labor, these middle class plutocrats, aim- Possibly these gents have learned from ing to curry the favor of the Rockefel their famous predeceBSOr, the Bon. David len, Morgans and Harrimans, who are I i M. Parry, now basking in the moonlight crushing th~m, are plotting to create a of obscurity, that organized labor will conflict between the radical and conserv not go out of business because they ative elements in the organized labor choose to rant and howl against it. movement. And possibly the Hons. Van Cleave, They won't succeed. Tbat trick is Parry and Post are working a shrewd played out. The radicals are going along scheme, similar to the one practiced by with the conservatives, who are now in "Sissy" Easley, the promoter and sole control of union aft'ain, in whatever the owner and proprietor of the National latter may undertake, and all the while Civic Federation. In any event, the thtfradical or socialist propaganda will be Hons. Van Cleave, Parry and Post asse- pushed, persistently and systematically, verate that they are the "friends" of until it ia accepted, just as radical organiud labor, provided that certain thoughts and ideas throughout the ages amendments are adopted, but, they de- have been adopted and progress hastened clare, they are unequivocably and un- and a higher civilization established. compromisingly opposed to the 8oclaUsts. The trouble with our "friends" is that The unions are all right, they intimate they have made no study of the material in so many words, if only they would istic conception of history, and are as cut out socialism, which they can't atom- ignorant of social science as are the un ach, God bless 'em I All the efforts of tutored and pugnacious workers whom our newly-found "friends" have been, they denounce for slugging a scab here and will continue to be, directed against and there. The radical, thinking element the "socialfstio abuses" of the unions, of the labor movement know the position lOOCS Digitized by Coogle 1006 WORLD OF LABOR they occupy full well, and they do not consistent actioua of the Van Cle&fto require any soothsayers to show them Post-Parry school of smashers. '1\e what is up the Van Cleave-Parry-Post rough-shod tactics of the latter, aeeord sleeve. Sleek and smooth as those gen· ing to the diplomatic and smooth pata tlemen and their votaries may be, they who train with and run the Ciric J'ed. can make up their minds that they are eration, were causing the spread of so not dealing with dunces when they tackle cialistic doctrine more than aur otlltr socialists. The socialists will meet them single influence. And it appean that always. If it is a case of diamond cut Van Cleave is shrewd enough to see for diamond, the "Reds" will be there, in himself that the vinegar policy has lJeea or out of the organized labor movement. leas helpful to capitalism than the Boote· velt-Taft.Carnegie molaaea policy, ud so Van and his crowd are starting tbe It is not improbable that this change of policy among the leaders of the union' "friendship" racket and lambutblg the Socialists. There are two reasons why smashing brigade, at least 80 far as Van Cleave is concerned, is also largely in Van Clt>ave can join the merry pug en gaged in "smashing socialism," the first fluenced by the fact that a great many of the middle class capitalists are be· being, as stated aoove, to divide aad ·coming somewhat tired of the game to conquer the unions, and the eeoo11d rea· disrupt organized labor. Perhaps they son is that to burl de4aut speeches aad are being bled too bard for financial sup· editorials at the socialists distracts the port or perhaps the big plutes are giving attention of those of his brethren who them no thanks and credit for the volun are reaching for his remunerative job u president of the Bucks Stove conoem. tary sacrifices they have been making. At any rate the petty capitalistaic breth· It is really amusing how some wile ren are beginning to tum on Van Cleave. fellows can allay opposition.. among their A short time ago he was roasted to a own followers and retain their honorable positions by hollering "wolf" at the eo tum at the Citizens' Allia•ce meeting cialists. "They're after me I Down with in St. Louis and his feelings were in· jured to such an extent that be resigned the socialists I" That is the rallyiag cry that works wonders on certain oe the presidency of that body. Now I am casioua. Considering their numerical informed by a member of the National ABBociation of Manufacturers that a strength the "Reds" are small faeton, quiet movement has been on foot for but when it comes · to playing the part nearly a year to dump Van Cleave over· of bugaboo and ghost the socialist. llu board at the convention of the fore got everything faded in ancient ud going organization, but that he smeUed modem times. a rat and announced his retirement. It is also rumored that the stockholders The settlement of the minen' trouble of the Bucks Stove & Range Co., smart in the anthracite region and the preven· ing under the unenviable notoriety gained tion of a national suspension by the by that conoem in the injunction cases, adoption of a three-year agreement pro are planning to oust Van CleJtve at the viding for the same conditions that pre first favorable opportunity that presents vailed heretofore, with alight minor con· itself. ceBBions from the operators, was perhaps So the changing views of the wily the best thing that could have been done "Jeema" become all the more transpar· under prevailing circumata~Me~: The ent. From Roosevelt and Taft to "SiBBY" truth is that the miners were poorl1 Easley the "reform" champions of capi· organized and finauolal17 unable to en· talism have been greatly annoyed by the gage · in a long siege, and that is pre· Digitized by Coogle ' WORLD OF LABOR .1007 cisely what they would have been com them .6,000,000, and that of the hatters pelled to undergo, for the operators were in a defensive fight to save their organi fully aware of the weakness of the union. zation, which is running into the mil In fact the most uncompromising ele lions, both unions among the strongest ment among the mine barons, led by (if not the strongest) in the American "Divine Rights" Baer, were very anxiotll labor movement, and then the reader that the men should throw down their will begin to get an idea of what labor tools, and were even advocating a 10 per is up against in this country. cent reduction of wages to force a strike. It sounds like, and is, a rehash to They have a surplus of 10,000,000 tons point out to the miners and all other stacked up and hoped to boost prices trade unionists the necessity of c~tting materially and at the same time batter loose from their old ideas and prejudices the union to pieces and starve the men and looking the new conditions that con· into helpless submission. It was a cold front them straight in the face. Locally blooded proposition-but good "business." here and there, the unions .may win However, Baer didn't have his way, fights, and at considerable cost, too. But and it looks as though he has lost his when it comes to a national battle it is grip in anthracite mining affairs and a terrible uphill struggle. This is no that Harriman, the conquering railway theory, but an actual condition. I know magnate, who recently obtained control what I am writing about, for during of the Erie road, is the new power in the past four yean I have been on the that industry. Harriman did not want a firing line in the contest waged by the strike. Whether the interests that he printers, with a half century of organ· represents bad an insufficient surplus • ized prestige behind them and a willing· of coal accumulated,- or .whether he feared ness to make the tremendous sacrifices the widespread agitation that would that they did, and with an enemy in naturally follow a national strike, is not front that was not as well fortified as quite clear-probllbly both reasons in are the capitalists in most trades, and fluenced this famous industrial captain. yet we still have quite a number of capi At any rate be put his foot down hard talistic entrenchments to conquer. With and the "divine rights" gents salaamed, all the powers of tlleir capital and their likewise the workers. government to support them, the employ In accepting conditions as he found ers are almost invulnerable. But they them·, President Lewis, of the miners, can be undermined and blown off the acted wisely in not leading to slaughter backs of the working class. If the toil· those men who were organized. It is dif· ere will only understand the conditions ftcult enough nowadays, with capitalism as they really are and take advantagP. centralized into an almost insurmount of their long-neglected weapon, the bal !lble atone wall, for militant, well-drilled, lot, they can make themselves masters well-organized and financially strong of the situation. unions to make an impreBBion on that At their last national convention in atone wall of plutocr~cy, let alone an Indianapolis the miners, by resolution, awkward squad or demoralited army declared for socialism. Now let them such as the anthracite miners ar!l, weakly make good their word--as their fellow organized and flnanet>d, possessing little C'raftsmen are doing in Europe. When or no knowledgf' of the powers with the miners and other workers rally to which they are confronted, and simply the standard of the socialist party and pitting their stomachs against the money put themselves in political power the bags. Witness the contests of the print master class and its scabs will learn to en for the eight-hour day, which eoet be good or get to hell out of the country. Digitized by Coogle 1008 WORLD OF LABOR .As was predicted in the Review are attempting to take advantage Jf months ago, the industrial battle on the the increasing demand being made for Great Lakes could not be avoided and union-made hats because of the strike. will probably continue throughout the present season. The Lake Carriers' .As Having "smashed socialism" to his en sociation is determined to destroy or tire satisfaction, the Rev. Charles Stelzle, ganized labor so far as its interests are labor commissioner of the Presbyterian concerned and asks for no compromise church, is now sounding prominent union and offers none. The marine workers officials on the subject of forming a made repeated efforts to arrange a set '·Temperance Fellowship," along the lines tlement, and even surrender some vital of a similar British organization, at the points, provided that the existence of forthcoming convention of the .A. F. their organizations were not forfeited, of L. at Toronto. Rev. Stelzle has writ but all to no purpose. So there was ten union officers that "the time has no option but fight to the bitter end. come" to take a determined stand on the It is a sorrowful sort of spectacle, this liquor question. So we'll probably have great contest. Here the workers have a "dry" discussion in the Toronto con been struggling and sacrificing for years Yention, as the ho,tel and restaurant to upbuild unions that would guarantee employes, brewery workers and other them a limited amount of protection, crafts are demanding that a stand be when along comes a capitalistic union made against the prohibition wave. and denies them the right that it claims for itself, viz., to organize for the mutual benefit of those enrolled. Thus the class war is on, and during the past month Texas Land $1.00 both sides have delivered some powerful To $6.00 Per Acre hammer blows. It is a give-and-take, Texas has passed new Schoo I Land Laws. Mllllons of acresa.renow to be sold by theSt&te at $1.00to $1>.00 rough-and-tumble fight. The unionists per acre; only one.tortieth cash and no more to pay tor 40 years, unless you desire; only 3 per cent Interest have been winning over crews or parts You can buy160acresat.l.OO peracre,payable.4.00 down and 40 years' time on the balance,3% interest. of crews 'and the corporationists have Greatest lpportunity ever offered to investors andtarm- been running in strike-breakers in ~:J':i:!!~~1~; ~~~irot~I~~~~~~g~~~~;a ~[;f!l~~: Map otTexas, and brief description ot over 400 mlllloa droves. No human being can foresee acre8 ot vacant public lands in 25 dJfferent Statel!l, the end. which are open to homestead. Three Books tor e1.00. E. C. HOWE, 954 Hartford Building, CHICAGO, ILL Much the same condition that prevails in marine circles exists in the hat-mak USE OUR MONEY ing industry. The unionists are success EstabUsh a profitable and lasting business A s NAP of your own. Be your own boss. We fully laying siege to the hat factories furnish everything, including Sample Out- ~-~~~~ fit valued at S3·50· We began with noth- F LIVE and very few competent strike-breakers ~o~ c~r; :;~ww:':itfi lt~di~~~;h;~u":e ::~ ~0~'~~~~ are being obtained. On the other hand Calalog, Plana and Sample Outfit now ready and ALL FREE. Write now. A0 E NT s the union manufactories are running Consolidated Portrait & Frame Co, ~~~,;,;,.;,.-. night and day to fill accumulating or 290-124 w. Adams St., Chlcaco, 111. ders. The strike or lockout has cost each side fully a million dollars, with little prospect of an immediate settle BABY ment of the struggle. On top of their that will make prize other troubles, the hatters have discov winners for you, for ered a bogus label that is being placed less than eggs cost. SUPPLY CATALOGUE 4 CTS CIRCULARS FR.EE in scab hats on the market by unscru THE OHIO HATCHERY & MFG. CO' pulous manufacturers or dealers, who are Box 8. Bellevue, Ohio av -.IOHN SPA .. QO Why such a book as The Bomb, by dolph Schnaubelt. Mr. Harris makes his l<'rank Harris, should have created a sen· story the personal confession of this sation in England, and then fallen com· Scbnaubelt, his autobiography. The pletely flat in this country, is a prob· story keeps very close to the lines of lem for which I have been quite unable the evidence given at the trial. Accord· to find .J. solution. That such a story ing to it, the only guilty person among should appeal strongiy ~o ~he ~eral the seven who were convicted was Louis novel-reading public of any country is in Lingg, who made the bomb, and of itself a surprising thing. whom a remarkably intimate account is The book deals with the bomb-throw given. Mr. Harris makes of Lingg a ing in Chica~ in 1886, for which seven great and terrible figure, dwarfing all men were punished, four of them being the others in intellect as well as in the "murdered-according to law," as our bitterness o.f his hate. The book is author says. During those trying days strongly written and forms an admirable Mr. Harris, who is a journalist by pro· summary of the whole tragic business. fession, was working upon a London It is published by Michael Kennerley, newspaper. The cabled reports from New York. Chicago were so one·sided, and eo hit· • • • ter in their condemnation, that they The alienation. of the masses from the cilused him to believe that there bad been church is an old plaint. For many years a terrible miscarriage of justice, and the leaders of the Christian churches he made up his mind, so he tells us, that have been lamenting over empty pews if ever be ~t the opportunity he would and asking eagerly why the workingman investigate the matter "and see whether does not attend the services of tbe the Socialists who bad been sent to death Church in larger numbers. The latest· deserved the punishment meted out. to to discuss this problem of "the gulf them amid the jubilation of the capital· between the masses of the laboring peo· istic press." That opportunity came after pie and the churches of today" is Mr. more than twenty years, in 1907, when C. Bertrand Thompson, who publishes Mr. Harris was able to visit Chicago and his ideas upon the cause and cure of the make a study of the matter. The re· separation in a volume of 220 pages, en· suit of his investigations is given in The titled The Churches and the Wage Earn Bomb. era. Those of my readers who are familiar Of course, Mr. Thompson has his with the details of that great miscar· remedy, but it is nothing more than a riage of justice will remember that, dur· programme of platitudinous generalities iug the trial, it was brought out that the such as one hears at every gatheriug bomb was actually thrown by one Ru· where the subject ia diacuased at all. 1008 Digitized by Coogle 1010 LITERATURE AND ART "The churches must offer the people a of the "newer" and "broader" Christi· modem Christianity in harmony with anity which he advocates, the old -.riil current modes of thought in history and do quite as well. science." Theological preaching is an I have an instinctive distrust of tat· utter failure. "The churches must look mongers. When I come across a c:hap to the problems of the present rather ter in a book like this headed ".AtheiJtit than of the past." "What the people Socialism," and see that the whole litera· of today need, and what the ministers ture of the movement has been ranueked ought to give them, is social preaching, to find texts which, when properly discussion of social and economic mat· isolated from their contexts, support ~ ters from the highest ethical and reli· indictment, I always feel like keepiar gious point of view. The churches must close hold upon my purse, so to speak. train a new conscience prepared to meet Text-baiting and intellectual disbon~y the new temptations of a commercial- are almost invariably associated. Bad ized age." ' one the necessary time, it would be From the passages quoted the reader easy to prove that, in a very large nam· will be able to get a fair view of Mr. ber of cases, perhaps a majority, the Thompson's attitude. He belongs to that passages thus quoted entirely misreprt· gr('at army of religious people who dis sent the works from which they art cern clearly enough the causes of the forcibly wrested to serve a partisan pur· failure of the church, but only dimly pose. perceive its significance. His proffered Thus, recently it was my good forl1lllf ·remedy is a counsel of perfection, for to lecture in Plymouth Church, Broot· no church in Christiandom could stand lyn, Henry \Vard Beecher's old ehurd1. honest and thoughtful "social preaching" as described by Mr. Thompson. At the close of the lecture, one of tbe One chapter of the book is devoted to most prominent members of the ehurcll "Christianity and Socialism." Follow· arose and quoted from a pamphlet whieh ing the lead of Professor Francis G. Pea· be claimed to have obtained from lbt body, of Harvard, of whom indeed Mr. oftke of the Outlook. He further Th1>mpson is little more than an echo, claimed that the pamphlet had been ¥ery be attacks the contention that Jesus was carefully studied by Mr. Roosevelt, wbo a Socialist; that Socialism is the logical had marked certain ji8Saages in it. :Sow expression of his teaching. His attack one of these passages made Karl Man is not so effective as Peabody's, but, responsible for a terrific onslaught upoa many of our Christian comrades who the family, calling it a system of pros· make the mistake of basing their argu· titution and claiming that Social:WD mente for Socialism upon a few isolated would do away with the whole system Bible texts would do W('ll to read what of · marriage. The pamphlet was writ· both have to say upon this point. It ten by a Catholic priest, a Jesuit, aDd does not fol11>w that in saying this I ac· the alleged "quotation" was manufaet· cept the conclusion of l\fr. ·Thompson ured. The crafty Jesuit simply took that Socialism and Christianity are in· Rome words of Marx which bore an ell· compatible; that Socialists cannot ac· tirely opposite meaning, and then inUT· cept "the conclusions of Christian ethics," polated and eliminated and twisted to any more than that I approve of the make the passage suit his case. A mol1' unfair spirit which ~rvad£'s his entire impudent literary forgery it would bt discussion of the subject. If Mr. Thomp· impossible to name. Fortunately, I was son's book is a fair sample of the spirit able to expo• it at the meetiug, muela Digitized by Coogle LITERATURE AND ART 1011 · to the discomfiture of the "prominent sorts to the expedient of abusing the member" referred to. lawyer for the plaintift'. To my mind, Mr. Thompson not only follows very the dominant characteristi~ of the book closely Professor Peabody's "Jesus are its onesidedness and its insincerity. Christ and the Social Question," but Aa an "attack" upon Socialism it is makes acknowledgment of the latter's rather a week popgun. The book is assistance. Now, upon page 16 of Pro· published by Scribners Sons, New York. feasor Peabody's book Marx is quoted • • • , as making a sweeping attack upon reli· Comrade Kropotkin Is the title of a gion-an ideological outburst which useful little biographical sketch of the Marx could not by any poBBibility have great Anarchiat-Communist, to give written. The same passage was quoted Peter Kropotkin the rather self-contra· by a New York Labor "leader'' and be dictory title he claims for himseH. Its was hailed by Mr. Roosevelt, who was author, Victor Robinson, is a young man then in office, as the savior of the nation of marked ability and literary ambition from Socialism. At that time, in the who may do good and valuable work if New York prel!s, I fully exposed the he can only be induced to drop all his trick. The "quotation" was not from affectations and write simply. He seems, Marx at all, but from a bitter enemy unfortunately, to have been influenced of Socialism, Wilhelm Marr, the anti· by Elbert Hubbard to such an extent semite humbug, whom Marx despised. that his literary style bas most of the Professor Peabody, when I called his at Fra's vices and almost none of his vir tention to the matter, undertook to see tue&. Curiously enough, he falls foul of that the passage was deleted from any his hero, Kropotkin, and laments his further editions of his book. But now lack of literary style! When Mr. Rob· Mr. Thompson, despite his working with inson can attain a style nearly equal Professor Peabody, reproduces the pas to that of Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid," sage on pages 134-135 of his book, giving for instance, or the "Memoirs of a Revo as his reference an article in the "Pall lutionist," he will be a much better lit Mall Magazine." So it becomes neces erary craftsman than he is today. For sary · once more to expose the lie. the present, be needs most of all to for Should any of my readers desire to get get Fra Elbertus, whose style at its best the exact particulars concerning this is not worth copying, and, above all, to passage which is so constantly used by eschew adjective&. He weakens his sen unscrupulous op_ponents, they will be tence& by loading them with adjectives. found on pages 69-70 of the new en The use of the adjective Is very perilous larged edition of my "Socialism'' for a young writer, and I am half in (1909). Time and space alike prevent clined to agree with whoever it was that investigation of other alleged quota· said "no person under forty years of tiona, equally shady. age has any business using adjectives." "The Churches and the Wage Earners" So much I say because of the ambitious is the product of a mind that faces both programme Mr. Robinson has sketched ways at once. Forced to admit the fail out for himself, and because of the prom· ure of the churches, and making admis ise his work contains in spite of all its sions which obviously lacerate his heart, youthful shortcomings. he is moved to spiteful wrath at the • • • progress of Socialism, both within and Victor Grayeon, M. P., the stormy without the churches. Like the pro petrel of the English Labor Party, and ftrbial attorney with a bad case, he re- Mr. G. R. S. Taylor have written in Digitized by Coogle 1012 LITERATURE AND ART collaboration a book entitled, The Prob same principles as the Labor Party is lem of Parliament, a Criticism and A now constituted. The book is published Remedy, which forms an interesting con by the New Age Press, London. tribution to the current discussion of * * * Socialist political policies. The book is From the same publishers comes' a lit- a rather vigorous criticism of the Brit tle book by G. R. S. Taylor, one of the ish Labor Party and its methods, but it authors of the book just noticed. It is is by no means devoid of interest for the entitled Leaders of Socialism, and con American Socialist, especially at this sists of a series of "interpretative time when so much is being said concern sketches" of the following: Owen, ing the possibility of the formation of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Las a Labor Party here patt,erned after the salle, Marx, Hyndman, Sidney Webb, English model. Keir Hardie, Bernard Shaw, Jaur~s, The authors find it an easy task to William Morris and Robert Blatchford. show the weakness of the Labor Party It is rather an inconsequential sort of by appealing to its parliamentary record. a book. The biographical information They argue that the Socialists in the contained in the sketches is of the party hold a peculiarly anomalous po slightest, while the "interpretations" are sition; that at every step they are com not particularly illuminating. Of all pelled, in order to keep the combina~ion the Socialists of all time Jean Jaur~s intact, to subordinate their Socialism in seems to Mr. Taylor to be the greatest deference to the pure and simple trades and most nearly full-rounded. As for unionists in the party. In place of the living English Socialists, if the govern existing combination, which more or less ment had the power to tie up all the So completely paralyzes the Socialists, they cialists of England in one fatal sackful would have a Labor Party, composed of and to grant that only one solitary So the non-Socialists of the organized labor cialist might be spared, the one to be movement, and a distinctively Socialist spared to maintain the fight should be Party. No matter how small the repre H. M. Hyndman. Upon the whole, the sentation of such a Socialist Party in book is a fair sample of the superficially the House of Commons might be, the clever products of some of our young strength of Socialism would be greater English "Intellectuals" of a smart type. than under the present system. Upon all matters relating to the trades union programme it is practically certain that This book by the Socialists would act with the Labor Evelyn Party, so that there would be no actual Gladys weakening for practical work. At the consists of 25 same time, they argue, the Sogialists as brilliant essays an independent group would not be under that will delight of subordinating their So working people the necessity who think them calist programme, and consequently there selves competent would be a much more aggressive So to regulate their cialist force in parliament. The Social own conduct, tho' they may shock those who delight ist Party, our authors believe, should be in regulating other people's morals. 0omprised of representatives of the vari Well primed on extra he~vy paper and b"";u ous Socialist bodies, each retaining its tifully bound in cloth; price $1.00, postpaid. own separate organization, but uniting Charles H. Kerr & Company (Co-operative) 153 Kinzie Street, Chicago. for electoral purposes upon exactly the SERIOUS THOUGHTS. Fellow indus dirty clothes of the present idle waste trial proletarians, what shall we do with ful ruling class and use our time and the "educated socialist" and the "re energy to plant something to eat, to spectable socialist 1" It is plainly evi make clothes for ourselves, to build our dent that we must do something with selves houses to live in, to take long these well-meaning comrades. We must spells of rest, to spend a day or two or a remand them to the rear or repudiate week or two lying under the shade of a them if we want to establish the In tree--eh, fellow-workers, would it not dustrial Republic. This is plain as can feel pleasant to lie on some green grass be. Behold the Socialist movement in now instead of slaving in a poisonous the United States today! It is really in workshop making "artistic" furniture a deplorable state of confusion. One day for the brutal rich! "Right you are," I the cry is "Votes for Women," the next hear you answer. Rest, rest, rest, is day, "Down with Hinky Dink," the next, what we weary proletarians want and "Hurrah for· 3-cent fares," "Down with that we behold in Socialism; that is the Japs," and the rest of the incessant the producing class will only have to nons,ense that has emanated from the work a few hours every day and then councils of our "leaders." \Ve do not we can spend many, many hours lying want benevolent feudalism; we want on the grass beneath the shade of a tree. socialism. 'We want to abolish the com We are tired of work, work, work. We petitive system; we want to establish are dissatisfied with the present "civili the Social Republic. We are not inter zation." We want Socialism. If we ested in "grafters," "Votes for Women," can't get Socialism, then we shall abol "Right to Work" and the rest of the non ish the present "civilization" anyhow, sense that is heralded as "immediate de for no matter what the result will be, mands." We have only one "immediate we are positive that we shall get more demand," and that is the abolition of rest than what we do now. We won't capitalism. We proletarians have no have to slave at night by the aid of time to waste on "Votes for Women," electricity, making "works of art" for "3-cent fares," "right to work," etc. We a lot of vampires. So then, fellow So do not care about "The Spiritual Sig cialists, increase and swell the cry nificance of Socialism." We proletarians "Away with Capitalism" and stop the are tired; we want a rest; we want to foolish chatter about "Spiritual Signi stop feeding, clothing and sheltering ficance of Socialism," "Votes for those ingrates who murder, starve and !Women," "Right to Work," etc. jail us outlawed proletarians. \Ve care CHARLES 0. KOHLER. not whether Socialism is or is not "ar- tistic," "spiritual," "moral" or "im- "THE PROLETARIAN ATTITUDE." moral." We want to stop washing the I read with much interest the article 1013 1014 NEWS AND VIEWS of Comrade Duchez on the above sub· pend upon our physical and mental pow· ject, in the April Review. era for the things neeeBSal'y to our U· I think I can sympathize fully with istence and that of our JoYed 011e1 lit his view of the Socialilt situation, al· pendent on us, and I am at a loes to though 1 am not a coal miner, yet for know why it is neceBB&ry or expedist the greater part of my life have worked to work up feeling and animollity onr for capitalist employers. Still in some hair splitting points of thia kind willll r~spects I do not vie\V the question just it would seem our whole strength uJ as he seems to. He draws a sharp and time, which we can devote to the caliJf, distinct line between· the honest and might better be ueed to educate our conscientious "intellectual" and the brother workers in all linea to see tlw "proletarian" Socialists. class struggle as we see it, and thereby It seems to me his definition and undermine the strength and power of classification of the two elements In our common enemy, the capitalist sya· the movement are unnecessarily em· tem. phaaized. In fact, I cannot see why such Our comrade draws the line sharply a distinction ought to be drawn at all. between the "intellectuals" and "pro A man or woman may be both an letarians," classing himself with the !at· "intellectual" and a "proletarian" at one ter, where he certainly belongs, yet 1 and the same time, surely. Many peo· would as surely place him with the "'m· pie in the movement who would be called tellectuals" and. prove my contention by "intellectual" are at the same time "pro· his own, well written article. letarian," which, if I understand the If some, outside of our movement, 1l'iQ definition of the word means a wage to classify us as "intellectuals" or out· worker. I do not know where the line side of that "crowd" simply on the would be drawn in defining the two. If score of a college or higher edueatioa, book education gives one the right to let them do so, but let us not lose sight the title of an "intellectual," who ean of the fact, which is recognized by m&DY say just what kind of an education is people, that education, practical, vital necessary or what manner of diploma education, requires something more thai he must have! And, again, who can having the diploma of a coUese or nni· draw the line between the workers in versity. different industrial pursuits and say I most assuredly agree with our eom· who are entitled to be called "prole· rade that we must zealously and jeal· tarians" and sift out those who are not ously watch our movement, and not entitled to that distinction T allow the power to fall into tbe hands As I said before, I am not a coal of any but thoroughly grounded in tbe miner, neither am I a boiler maker, a faith, class conscious, proletariaa so earpenter or a blacksmith, yet for many cialists, but we should at the same time years have worked for wages and earned be broad enough to take in all wage· my living as a bookkeeper, and feel that. working, class conscious socialiatl DD· I am as much entitled to be called a der that head, and pick out the best ma· "proletarian" as our comrade who is a terial from among the great variety of coal miner. Both of us are fllling our useful workers to fill positions of trnst. places as necessary wage slaves under All are needed and have their place in the Capitalist System, and our inter· the movement, and we certainly cannot ests are truly identical in working to afford to exclude any whose heartl are change that system. We both work for right simply because they do not work capitalist corporations, both have to de· at our kind of labor. Digitized by Coogle NEWS AND VIEWS 1015 We, the workers must recognize our brother wage-workers in all callings and Good Printing give each and everyone the benefit of our comrades~ip and credit for what he is doing for the common cause. If you need printing a.t a.ll, "Workers- of the world"-ALL workers you need good printing: -that is all who live by the efforts of their own labor-"unite." the other kind is Only in this way can we hope to over worse than none. throw n.pitalism and establish a eo operative commonwealth of all the workers. T. J. MAXWELL. THE NEBRASltA. SITUATION. In answer to your inquiry about the Ne Our buaineu Is publiablng; we have braska movement would Sl!-Y that I feel no printing omoe of our own, and for proud to be, for the present, a part of several years we have been obliged to re· this growing state movement. As for fuse any ordere for printing. "factionalism," about which you, no doubt, feel concerned. I know little about Now, however, we have made arrange· it, have heard little about it, have en menta with one of the he1t printing countered next to none of it. Socialist conf!Ciousness is moving in an economi houaea in Chicago, employing union labor cally dt-termined course. Everybody Is exclusively, to give careful attention to something-knows something, and knows every order reet>lved. through ua. it better than anybody else does. There are none great, except by comparison. No job Is too large and no job too All covet opportunity. small to he handled here. If you want The Socialists of Nebraska are build ten thousand books, or 6\·e hundred buai ing the foundation for a state movement neu card•, write ua a letter giving the that will, ere long, give a good account of itself. necessary particulars; we will turn over Capitalism is not so murh e\·olving in the letters to our printers and you will Nebruka as it is being importt-d. The get an estimate of the cost. We know Nebraskan conforms to capitalism re from our own experience that you will luctantly. be pleased with the work. , The doctrine of Nebraska bas been: "Every man serve himself.'' He does Incidentally, by placing your order not readily conform to the doctrine of through ua you will help the Review. many men sen·e the few. Capitalism has in reality bet>n transplanted in Ne braska. ADDRESS He is yet of the generation who staked their own claims. He does not like the Charles H. Kerr & Co idea of dividing up with the idle rich, once you are able to "show him." The (Co-Gperatin) Nebraskan is just "sore" enough about something, he knows little about, to 153 Kinzie Street • Chicago Digitized by Coogle 1016 NEWS AND VIEWS listen to what the other fellow thinks READERS OF THE IlfTBUATIOIIAI. he knows. SOCIALIST REVIEW. Superstitions and traditions are not The Bank of Kansas of Kansas, Okla· the fixed quantity of the east. Leaders, homa, will receive your deposits under whose type thrive in the east, must the Oklahoma Law guaranteeing Safety to Depositors. As you know, protectioa handle their "buncome" in Nebraska with of the earnings and savings of the people care. The Nebraskan is not a good sub· is somethtng only recently obtainable. ject for exploitation. He enjoys just This Law of Oklahoma's is simply an effort of a people, in their own behalf, enough good things to want to enjoy who are not so much bound by the "Jack more. of a precedent'' and other prejudic:es as The Nebraskan Ia not, as the New those of older States. Yorkers sometimes think, putting his The benefits obtained and realized an obvious, and show with what ease the "trigger" finger through a course of people may obtain further comforts and physical culture, but he retains just privileges when so inclined. Is there any enough spirit of western justice to enjoy wonder the "Powers" of the Country a "square deal," and to fight for it. To were directed against such a move in the show him is the problem. Not a problem National Campaigq I The Bank wishes to furnish a little of his intelligence but a problem of booklet which may be of interest to those reaching him. desiring further information. In the northeastern portion of the A fair rate of interest on Deposits thus state, Socialism has little foothold. protected is obtainable. No"other section of the country is more Address ready for socialist propaganda. Here C. L. PRATT, JR., Cashier, Ka1111U, Okla. we are in need of local socialists who UD· derstand propaganda. It is also a ques· tion of raising expenses of propaganda. J. HOWARD MOORE'S To make finished politicians of the LATEST BOOK voting socialists is a question of how to carry to them, somehow, the science of organization. THE NEW ETHICS The Nebraskan Socialists, like the ie considered by many to be vastly SU· majority of others, have fallen into the peri or to his. other books. You will n~ error of believing that socialism must only enjoy readiDg it yourself many win just because its philosophy is sound. times but will "pass it on" to others. The Socialists have yet to learn that Prof. Raymond,Unlversity ofChicago. Socialism will win only as we make it says: "It is one of the very few books win. that I prize most highly. I have read and re-read it with the greatest delight Who can word the science of organi· and greatest profit, and have presented zation so that it will be understandable, copies to numerous friends." irrefutable, clean cut and defined T The Revised Edili"oll-./llsl Issued writer who can and will do this will do the socialist party a valuable service. CLYDE J. WRIGHT. $1.00 ~~~;; SAMUEL A. BLOCH THE AIIII OF SOCIALISIII. "In its Tbe Boolcmaa normal form, the circulation of com· 676 N. Oakley Ave., modities demands the exchange of equiv· CIJtCAGO, ILL~ Digitized by Coogle NEWS AND VIEWS 101'( alents."-K. Marx's Capital, Vol. I, page 178. POCKET LIBRARY This statement is so definite that it OF SOCIALISM must either be explained as it stands or on rejected. Contemplating first then that Sixty of the Best Short Books commodity which is the arch-source of Mocfern International Socialism. Five Cents Each Postpaid. all others, ''labor power," we find that its value is determined by the average 1. Woman and the Social Problem, MayWood Simons. time necessary for its production. 2. The J;;volution of the Class Struggle, W. H. Noyes. labor 3. Imprudent Marriages,.. Robert Blatchford. Whether ther,efore a working man re 4. Packingtown1 A. 1\L ;:,imons. 1 ceives 50 cents or $5 per day, t ~i~i~~T~~~~:es~~i~ri:~~ f~1f Sf~~C:s~· Darrow. 7. Wage Labor and Capital, Karl Marx, whatever wages he re~ives is equal 8. The Man Under the Machine, A.M. Simons. 9. The Mission of theW orking Class, Charles H. Vail. in value to the average labor time 10. Morals and Socialism, Charles H. Kerr. 11. Socialist Songs, Compiled by Charles H. Kerr. necessary to produce his labor pow 12. After Capitalism, What? Wm. Thurston Brown. 13. Rational Prohibition, Walter L. Young. er, or to the value of his means of 14. Socialism and Farmers, A.M. Simons. 15. HowiAcquiredMyMillions, W.A.Corey. [ports. subsistence-and so we find that in this 16. Socialists in French Municipalities, [from official re- case indeed equal values are exchanged, }~: ~~~~~I~~l:h~ '{y~~:rlf~~k,iEdw~t~x~~l~~;.s· for practically all the money paid for 19. The Real Religion of Today, Wm. Thurston Brown. wages is in its turn con¥erted into means ~r: ~;~Y1\~s~o.~.~~~~~i,"j;g.~~~~iP v~eon. 22. Science and Socialism~obert Rives LaMonte. of subsistence. Applying the above def ~t ~~atthee aJ;~i~jf.~~\\7 oJl~b~:R~M1.0Si~~~';_n. inition to the values of all other com 25. The Folly of Being "Good," Charles H. Kerr. 26. Intemper.ance and Poverty, T. Twining. modities we arrive at the same conclu 27. The Relation of Religion to Social Ethics, Brown. 28. Socialism and the Home, May Walden. sion, what is popularly considered a 29. Trusts and Imperialism, Gaylord Wilshire. 30. A Sketch of Social Evolution, H. W. Boyd Mackay. kind of arbitrary overcharge over and 31. Socialism vs. Anarchy, A.M. Simons. part of the capi 32. You and Your Job, Charles Sandburg. above the value on the 33. The Socialist P'arty of America, Platform, etc. talist and which goes under the des 34. The Pride of Intellect, Franklin H. Wentworth. 35. The Philosophy of Socialism, A.M. Simons. ignations Profit, Rent and Interest, is 36. An Appeal to the Young, Peter Kropotkin. 37. The Kingdom of God and Socialism, R. M. Webster in reality nothing but part of the value 38. Easy Lessons in Socialism, W. H. Leffingwell. 39. Socialism and Organized Labor, May Wood Simons. of commodities-namely, that part which 40. Industrial Unionism, William E. Trautmann. 41. A Socialist Catechism, Charles E. Cline. is produced during the time given by 42. Civic E viis. or Money and Social Ethics, C. H. Reed 43, Our Bourgeois Literature, Upton Sinclair. the laborer gratis to the capitalist. But 44. The Scab, Jack London. of the value should properly 45. Confessions of a Drone, Joseph Medill Patterson. this part 46. Woman and Socialism, May~Walden. be recovered by the former instead of 47. The Economic Foundations of Art, A.M. Simons. 48. Useful Work vs. Tr seless Toil, William Morris. being filched as it is by the latter, and 49. A Socialist View of Mr. Rockefeller, John Spargo. it should serve to increase the value ~~: Wr~~R~~~~~i~~et~\i~~~i~~1~~~bde~;g~D~'Jfe~;;;~· 52. Where We Stand, John S'/argo. of his labor-power, i. e., of his means 53. History and Economics. . E. Sinclair. of subsistence (by increase in value is g~: §~~iail~ina~~Psel~~~;;,cii.LM~~{~Jl~~~;n. in 56. Economic Evolution, Paul Lafargue. here to be understood an incr,ease 57. What Socialists Think, Charles H. Kerr. quantity and quality) and to provide gg: ~h;~ ~i~:k~~::.~og~~~fd ~;'~1S~cfalt~~;~ilshire him with a living worthy of human be 60. Forces that Make for Socialism in America, Spargo ings. That is what Socialism seeks to These books contain 32 pages each, and accomplish and if that is going to lead are exactly the right size and weight to to barbarism, then let it be so, Mr. mail in an ordinary envelope along with postage. will be stopped a letter without making extra Roosevelt. Capitalism A full set of the sixty books in a strong when the laborer shall receive the value box will be mailed to any address for of his product instead of the value of One Dollar. No reduction from the regu his labor power. lar price of five cents each in smaller lots. Address J. ROSENSTEIN. Honolulu, May 3, 1909. Charles H. Kerr & Company 153 Kinzie Street, Chlcalito, 111. 1018 NEWS AND VIEWS ' A REPLY. Dr. Thomaa C. Hall's A FORTI·VOLUME LIIIAIY somewhat belated contribution to the Of the belt lodau.t aad Sdeatlflc: Books. wlllt a May issue of the I. S. R. can hardly $10 Stock Certificate that elves tite ri&bt to loiiJ BoobataciJKouat,aJJ HDt prepaid few $20.00 be considered as an answer to my ar· ticle in the number of the Review for Memoirs of 1\:arl Marx, Liebknecht. August last year. The learned Doctor Collectivism, Emile Vandervelde. _does not even attempt to refute my The American Farmer, Simons. t be d labelin th "d Origin of the Family, Engels. argumen 8 • yon g em og· The Social Revolution, Kautsky. matic." He insists on being classed Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, EDgelL with Catholic priests, orthodox Greek Feuerbach, Engels. popes, Mohammedan dervishes and Jew· American Pauperism, Ladoff. ish rabbis. De gustibus non disput· Britain for the British, Blatchford. Communist Manife~to, Marx and Engels. andum eat. • • "Men of good will" are C ·minology Enrico Ferri. a I ways we I come lD· the eocta· lis t camp, no Thert \Vorld's' RevolutiOns,· Untermann. matter what they believe or do not be· The_ Socialists, ~ohn Spargo. . lieve in. What socialists have to guard ISoctal and Philosophtcal Studtes, La· . t . f I t h fargue. agat~ • ts a se p_re ense, so very c ar· What's So and ·what Isn't, Work. actensbc of exptring creeds. It was · Ethics and Historical Materialism, Kaut· always considered bad manners to tell sky. the truth, but I am in that respect at Class Struggles. !n America, Si~ons. La· least in good company. That I am not Socialism, Posttn·e and Negative, • II h h ead . Monte.· a d ogmatiSt a t oee w o r my wrtt· Capitalist and Laborer, Spargo. ings will testify. I am at least as tol· The Right to Be Lazy, Lafargue. erant in matters of religious creeds as Revolution and Counter-Revolution. Marx. Ch •- • · · Anarchism and Socialism, Plechanotr. some. r ... ttan soctahsts. One •accusa· E VO 1U t•tOn, SoCia · 1 an d Organ1·c, LewiS· • tJon of my esteemed opponent ts true: Goethe's Faust, Marcus Hitch. I did not study theology, astrology, Changes in Tactics, Kampffmeyer. necromancy, occultism and similar "Sci· Value, _Price and Profit, .Marx. ences." Mea culpa mea maximal How· Ten. B_hnd I.ead~rs, LewtR. . '. " Soctahsm, Morris and Bax. ever, I dtd not diScuss theology, but The Evolution of Man, Boeleche. the mutual relation between the institu- Germs of Mind in Plants, France. tiona) church and socialism. I hope to The End of the World, Meyer. subject Dr. Hall's article to a detailed Science and Revolution, {;ntermann. The Triumph of Life, Boelsche. analysis in the Truthseeker in the near Life and Death, Teichmann. future. Yours fraternally, The Making of the World, Meyer. IsADOB LADOFF. Human All Too Human, Nietzsche. Stories'of the Struggle, Winchevsky. God's Children, James Allman. PORTLAND, OREGON. State Secre· The Russian Bastile, Pollock. tary Sladden of the Socialist Party Out of the Dump, Mary E. Marcy. sends us clippings from one of the lead· n-books are aU well bouad Ia doth, aeH.,. ing . capitalist papers reporting a parade Ia size and style, maklnc aa attractive IJJnrY• We aell them separately at flit)' c:eata eadl, ,-. of union men and socialists as a protest paid. We wiD ·mall aay TWO of them to 181 against Judge Wright's decision against oae who Is already a subscriber to the INTER• NATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW, aad _..., Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison. The $1.00 with the name of a NEW aabscrlller fort paper states that between 8,000 and year, but we wiU clve ao lllooka to aay oee for -clllll Ia his owa aubac:rlptJoa. 10,000 union men formed the parade, and For $20.00 cash with order. we wiD -~~ tlc that nearly 1,500 of them were socialists. full set of forty volumes by ax~ ~ tocetber with a full..pald certJIIc:ate for a abanGI The Portland comrades are to be con· ltock Ia our pubUshiDI hoaae. Addraa gratulated on the fact that they are in CHARLES H. KERR &. 00MPANY close and intimate touch with the unions, tit .U.T KINZI. 8TIIUT, CHIOA80 Digitized by Coogle ""The Library of Original Sources., (IN THE ORIGINAi:"DocuMENTS-TRANSLATED) Sweeps away the bi!!"otry and superstition that has accumulated around R.03ligion, Government, Law, Social Sciences, etc.-brings to light the naked truth and shows why Socialism is coming. This rare collection of Original Documents cC!vers the entire field of thought-Socialism, Philoscphy, Sociology, Science, Educatwn, His tory, etc.-presenting the ideas that have influenced civilization in the actual words of those who have developed them. The documents have been arranged in chrono logical order, exhaustively indexed and printed on hand-made deckle-edge paper, cased in strong buckram, making ten large and handsome volumes. VICTOR L. BERGER SAYS: "Every Socialist should know something besides his Karl Marx-which, by the way, those who know the least about him quote the most. The mere knowledge of a few Socialist phrases Is not sufficient to make a 'scientific' Socialist. "In order to know WHY Sociali~m is coming, a Socialist should have some idea of the theory of evolution, and some knowledge of history. In order to know WHY it is coming, he must know something of economic development. "We, as Socialists, are vitally interested in the development of civilization. History for us is not a collection of 'shallow village tales,' the story of the coron ations, weddings and burials of kings. Nor is it simply an account of battles lost and won, so many thousand killed on either side, and this or that king or general given all the glory. No. For us the true lesson of history is the story of the progress of mankind by gradual steps, from brutal savagery to enlightenment, cult ure and humanity. A great I!Jngfish statesman has wisely said, 'the history of the future is to be read in the pages of the past.' "No one realizes this truth more than the really scientific Socialist. "The manner in which one system has grown out of another, feudalism out of slavery, and capitalism out of feudalism, is most suggestive of the manner by which the Socialist Republic will gradually develop out of the present system. "These are the most instructive lessons of history. "To do this is the aim of a set of books recently published under the title of LIBRARY OF ORIGINAL SOURCES. It gives in ten volumes a history of the various lines of human development. And what is its special advantage, this history is given in the original documents that formed the milestones of the development." NOT FOR "SCHOLARS"-BUT FOR THINKERS Not for "scholars," but for THINKERS-the PRODUCERS who are beginning to be disenthralled and ~'HINK FOR THEMSELVES. APPEAL TO BEASOJII': "Active Locals A. B. LIVIJII'GSTOJII', Secretary Local of the Socialist Party could not make a Hackberry, Kansas: "I owe you my ·better investment than a set of these thanks. It is the greatest addition I books.'' ever made to my library.'' B. 0. PLOWEB, Editor Arena: "The JEJII'XIJII' LLOYD JOJII'ES, Abraham Lin most comprehensive and vital work deal- coin Centre: "I have kept the •research ing with fundamental causes.'' volumes' in my upper chamber, have A. M. SIMOJII'S, Editor Chicago Daily So- worked with them, slept with them, re cialist: "Superior to encyclopaedias . . . joiced in them.'' will be read when novels are forgotten. ELBERT HUBBABD, "The Philistine": A work over which it is easy to grow "Of great help to me in my work.'' enthusiastic, difficult to find fault." WALTEB LOHBElii'TZ, Secretary Long TOM OLII'l!'OBD, Socialist Lecturer: shoreman's Union: "A boon to the work "That which I have longingly desired ing class, who have neither opportunity for years, and which I must confess I nor money to get a university educa- despaired of ever enjoying-'The Library tion." . ~~ c?.:r\f!~~fon~'?urces' a service ABTHUB MOBBOW LEWIS, Lecturer "Scientific Socialism": "I have found M. M. MAJII'GASABIAJII', Lecturer "Inde- nothing to reduce my labor of ransack pendent Religious Society" (Rationalist): ing public libraries until I bought 'The "Confers on us the privilege of going to L\brary of Original So,trces,' the new the 'Sources'-there's where thought is synthetic philosophy. It is the most sane, sound and unadulterated." valuable part of my library.'' EBJII'EST UJII'TEBMAJII'JII', Lecturer on "Socialism": "Your kindness is most appreciated and I enclose check. The MAIL THIS TODAY. Documents will be my most valued com University :Research Exten&ion, panions this winter." Milwaukee, Wis.: SEYMOUB STEDMAJII': "It stands like G~ntlemen-Please send Table a pyramid in a desert.'' of Contents and review articles by Simons and Berger and tell me IMPOBTAJII'T. how I can get the l.O volumes and The edition is limited-so write for a 20-year membership on a co operative basis. No obligation in Table of Contents and reviews by volved. by this request. Simons and Berger today-now, before you lay down the International Socialist Name Review. If you put it off you'll forget Address .... , ...... and miss the opportunity. I.S.R. +------·· 1020 NEWS AND VIEWS and that without swerving a hair'a llrfODEIUf DXICO, an Eugliah dupli· breadth from the atraight road to revo eate of the Mexican Herald, a govern· lution. mental organ, says in a recent iBSUe: ''Puebla, April 12.-The English idea FROM .ARXABSAS. I have juat ftn· of associating in eoeietiea when out of iahed reading an article in the April work has evidently atruck this place, as number of the International Socialist Re· a number of men, instigated by a cer view, by Louia Duchez, under caption tain maniac, formed such a aoeiety and "The Proletarian Attitude." were proceeding to U.Pbraid the tyrants of capital and other movements of simi: For one I would like to acknowledge lar vein. The ringleader waa di100vered my hearty concordance. I congratulate to be crazy and was abut up in the aay· the Socialist Party upon having within lum, thus nippipng the movement In the its ranks, I congratulate myself that bud." there is yet a man who can stand on I send you this clipping because it the ground and talk, whose claasiAea· shows clearly to my mind the way, or ·tion ia accurate, the reftex of the things one way, capitalists will try to abut about him, whose diaeriminatlng mind socialism out of Mexico. Simple enough. 8elect1 unfalteringly the course that "'Why, the man is crazy." leads direct, whose understanding and So I think. The aoeialiat who opens courage expose pitfalls and seduetion, up his unanswerable batteries in public who atepe boldly up and tears aside the in Mexico must be needing the abelter mask of Glory and reveals that It cov of an asylum. There fa no safety in ers no bread and butter. Not a man of Mexico for free speech. yesterday nor tomorrow but a ftesh and LEwis F. II.&.DLBY. blood man awake to his position, a man Bear Lake, Mich. aeeuatomed to doing things, wlio knows what he wants and is going after it. He Well Improved homestead for eale. Also four city Iota cheap. Write quick will do to follow. If you want to locate In this beauUtul southland of sunshine and warm win R. AI..I.EN (A Railrood Agent). ters, the owner, J, lP. mu.r, D1lb, Okl&. The Ore a test Suffrage Issue Ever Published Is MOODS ;TeH:sMl~!r~¥1- for June-July Twenty-five Cents a Copy One Dollar and Firty Cents the Year Among the Contributors on either side are CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN ANNA NATHAN MEYER B. BORRMANN. WELLS ALEXANDER HARVEY WINNIFRED HARPER COOLEY HENRY FRANK A tremendous question sincerely and fearlessly discussed. The number also con tains a complete play, several stories and poems, and critical reviews of art, liter ature. drama. musir. and lectures. New subscribers will receive four back numbers free. Your dealers can &"et it from the American News Company, or send twenty· five cents to THE MOODS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 124 West 19th Strut, New York City Digitized by Coogle PUBL.ISH ARTMENT FINANCIAL REPORT FOR APRIL. The Review and the book business carried on with it are the prop erty of 2,055 stockholders scattered all over the world. Many of these stockholders are locais or branches of the socialist party, each with many members, so that it is safe to say that most of the readers of the Review are directly or indirectly owners of the business. This being the case, we believe it is well worth while to use the space necessary to explain our receipts and expenditures from month to month, so that those who put in the money may know how it is expended. Last month we gave complete- figures for March. Here are the figures for April: RECEIPTS. EXPENDITURES. Cash balance, April 1 ...... $ 248.27 Manufacture of books ...... $ 562.02 Book sales ...... •...... 1,543.53 ~ks purchased ...... 207.05 Review subscriptions and sales. 709.82 Printing April Review ...... 477.00 Review advertising ...... 122.50 Review department work .... . ·. 25.00 Sales of stock ...... 172.14 Wages of office clerks ...... 347.10 IAans from stockholders . . . . . • 110.00 Charles H. Kerr, on salary .. . . 100.00 Donation from Eugene Dietzgen 250.00 Mary E. Marcy, on salary ...... 85.00 Postage and expressage ...... 322.3l Interest . • ...... 12.00 Rent ...... •...... • 70.00 :Miscellaneous expenses ...... 28.78 Advertising ...... • 602.38 Copyrights ...... 25.50 Loans returned to stockholders. 127.06 Cash balance April 30 ...... ---165.04 Total ...... $3,156.26 Total ...... $3,156.26 As compared with March, the Review receipts show a very slight decrease, while the expenditures on account of the Review are considerably diminished. This is partly explained by the fact that in beginning to supply the Review returnable to newsdealers we were obliged at first to print many surplus copies until experience showed which dealers had a steady sale for it. The loss on this score is not yet over, but it is considerably diminished. The book sales are still far below what they should be, but we believe that the circulation of 1021 Digitized by Coogle 1022 PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT "What to Read on Socialism," of which we have printed 30,000 copies since the first of May, will tend .to increase sales soon. This should also help the sale of stock, which dropped to a low point during April. The donation of $250.00 from Eugene Dietzgen was a timely help, which saved us from what otherwise would have been an embarrassing deficit. Comrade Dietzgen has done his full share, and we must not expect more from that source. But more money is urgently needed to extend the work of the publishing house in the near future. Two of the directors have pledged $125 each, provided a total of $750 is con tributed by others. An announcement explaining the need of help has been mailed to all stockholders whose addresses are known and who are thought to be able and willing to help. The special need of ready money at this time was partly explained in last month's Review. One new complication has, however, arisen during the month, which makes our need all the more urgent. Mary E. Marcy, secretary of the publishing house, who has for · the last year handled nearly all of the editorial and business cor respondence, was taken seriously ill early in April. She kept at her work through sheer force of will, long after she should have- given up, and was finally taken to the hospital in a critical condition. She is not yet out of danger, and her recovery can in any event only be slow. This has crippled our work for the last month, and has without doubt been a factor in reducing our receipts, since our correspondence has necessarily been limited to the most essential routine letters, while all plans for the extension of our work are awaiting our secretary's re covery. Lack of ready money has even made it impracticable to employ the temporary help that we really need, and a prompt lift from each stockholder will be necessary to meet the emergency. An appeal was sent out on May 14, and responses are beginning to come in as we go to press. Those who have not answered are urged to do so at once. Marx's Third Volume. The inevitable delay in typesetting, proof reading, electrotying, printing and binding have put us back in the publication of the third volume of Capital so that copies can not be ready for mailing before the middle of June, and possibly a few days later. But it will be worth waiting for. It will contain 1,048 pages, printed on extra paper and handsomely bound, in style uniform with the previous volumes. Mechanically it will be the best book we have yet published. It will be equal to capitalist books on economics issued at $5.00 a volume, and our price will be $2.00 a volume, with our usual discount to stockholders. Do not fail to read Ernest Unter rnann's article in this issue explaining the contents of the volume. Digitized by Google PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT 1023 It is, we trust, well understood that the publication of a signed article does not imply that the editor of the Review agrees with all views ex pressed in it. Comrade Untermann says much that is true and much that is valuable, but we trust that our readers will hold him, not Marx nor the Review, responsible for what he says of "industrial monopoly" toward the end of his article. By the way, Marx's third volume contains ample data showing that most of the "high prices" on trust-made goods which are popularly attributed to mo'nopoly are really due to the working of the law of the average rate of profit. In fact Comrade Untermann points this out elsewhere in his article. There will be plenty of controversies over this third volume when our speakers and writers begin to read it. If you want to follow them intelligently, read it yourself, and remember that to understand it you must have read the first and second volumes. The whole set should be in the library of every. socialist local. Bound Volumes of the Review. This number of the Review com pletes its ninth year and volume. Several of the issues of the year arc entirely out of print, but we have saved 300 sets of sheets for bind ing. Early next month the volumes will be ready for delivery in cloth, uniform with previous volumes. The price will be $2.00 post paid. To stockholders, $1.20 postpaid. Previous Volumes. Our supply of Volumes I and II is very nearly exhausted. The price of these is now $5.00 each. with no dis count to any one. \Ve have from a hundred to 300 each of the other volumes. We can not afford longer to pay rent for the space they occupy and interest on the money locked up in them. We there fore now make all readers of the Review an offer that is almost sure to close them out at once. For $3.50 we will send volumes III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and IX of the Review, bound in cloth, by express at purchaser's expense. Our supply of Volume III is limited; when it is reduced to 25 copies we shall put up the price to $5.00 each. Moreover, part of the copies of Volume III are slightly damaged, as is also the case with one or two of the other volumes. Those who order first at this special rate of $3.50 will get all perfect copies; those who delay may find one or two of their volumes .slightly damaged. This price of $3.50 does not include expressage; we will prepay for $1.50 additional, but if you live within 1,000 miles of Chicago, the expressage you will have to pay on receipt of the package will be considerably less than this. A Title Page and Index for Volume IX will be mailed free to any subscriber who asks for it promptly. In future we shall probably bind no more volumes in cloth; those who want bound volumes will Digitized by Coogle 1024 PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT have to arrange for their own binding. Let us suggest now that this special offer on bound volumes may interest many librarians, since public libraries are beginning to have an unprecedented call for socialist literature, and the volumes of the Review contain a wealth of information on socialism not otherwise obtainable. Remember that this low price will soon be withdrawn. AddressofeveryTravelina WANTED Or.:anizer or Lecturer holding regular credentials from National or State organization• of the Socialist Party, We have a proposition on the International Soelallst Review and SoclallstBooks that will ensure good wages to anycompe• tentma.u on the road. Address Charles H. Kerr t.t Co., Chie&&O FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE By BEN HANFORD Second Edition Now Read:y This book bids fair to be one of the best propaganda sellers in the Socialist movement. It is written in Hanford's well-known style, and ·contains many striking stories, each covering some special points in' the Socialist argument. Just the thing to appeal to the workingman. Nicely gotten up, paper cover, with por trait and biographical sketch of the author. First edition ex hausted first week. Price, 25c.; $1.50 a Dozen. WILSHIRE BOOK CO. Clearing House for All Socialist Literature - 200 William St., New York··~=::::. tandard Books at Cost ~o bq.lf the•• book• at the co•t or "net" price• name4 below, ;rou mu•t be a •tockhol4er 11 oqy :pubU•h11llr hou... A •hare oo•t• '10.00. You CAll pa;r a 4ollar a month, an4 b.,m 1u71ne' book• at a 41•count u .aon u :rou have pa14 :rou flr.t 4ollar, or :rou can pa:yt :10.00 at one Ume, Ill which ca11e we w1ll •en4 :rou a full:y-pa14 oertltl.cate an4 w1ll lllclu4e , year•• •ub•ol1ptton to the BBVDW. Ill or4erl.lllr at; net price• a44 pona.re, Ullle•• ;rou rl•h 'the book• ..nt b:r ezpre•• at ;rou ezpen... PBZXCIPr.BS. B:r Horbert Spencer. Re· Grass" as published In t860 and of Drum Taps," n and Science, Ultimate Religious Ideas, published In t865. It contains all of Whitman's 11nt., Scientific Ideas, the Relativity of All best poems, and Is far superior to any other vledge. the Reconciliation, the lndestructi moderate priced library edition. Cloth, retail ' of Matter, the Continuity of Motion, the 60c, net 40c, postage tOe. lstence of Force, Evolution and Dlssolu- TBB :POBM8 0:1' WI:r.:L:U.M MOBBJS. Selecte Digi.ized by